


New Beginnings: The Seventh Year (On Hiatus)

by daynalee80



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, F/M, M/M, On Hiatus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-25
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:49:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 57,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27713654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daynalee80/pseuds/daynalee80
Summary: Harry's seventh year was filled with danger and joy as he fell in love with a certain good looking blond. Then they discovered the connection between the two of them.On Hiatus at the moment. Not sure when it will be continued. Read at your own risk.Note: Based on story up till HP-Book 4. This story was written many years ago by author before the 5th book was published.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Neville Longbottom/Ginny Weasley, Seamus Finnigan/Dean Thomas





	1. Leaving Behind Your Past

**Chapter 1: Leaving Behind Your Past**

"Wake up, Boy, and cook breakfast for us! Dudley is hungry! Bring your TRASH down so that we can get rid of you sooner!" Harry Potter was awakened by his uncle's shouting and banging on his door and Dudley's heavy footsteps down to the kitchen. He hurriedly got up from his bed, tidied it up real quick (he knew he would have to rush in the morning and ended up packing all his things last night and sleeping on top of his covers to prevent messing up the bed) and unlatched Hegwig's cage. Hegwig hopped out of her cage and lifted one of her talons, looking at Harry, questioning.

"No Hegwig, no letter today. Fly to Hogwarts' owlery and wait for me there huh? No point you suffer the journey with me to the station." Hegwig hopped to the window sill, hooted in agreement and flew out towards the direction of Hogwarts. Harry hurriedly grabbed his trunk and the empty cage, what Uncle Vernon referred to as 'trash', and opened the door to the room. He glanced back into the room to make sure that he had everything that belonged to him before rushing downstairs to place his stuff by the front door and started cooking breakfast.

Anyone looking into the kitchen of this house would think that this was a normal house, with a normal household consisting of parents with two children. Except that this was not the case. Three of them were normal, and they were a family. However, the seventeen-year-old boy who was currently serving the other severely overweight boy was not normal or part of the family. He never deemed himself to be anyway. He was the cousin of the other boy, and nothing about him was normal, due to that lightning bolt scar that marked his forehead above his right eyebrow. He was not just leaving for school, but he was leaving for a wizard school, where the curriculum was pertaining to teaching the students how to use magic. And this year was his last year in the school, and after that, it meant that he would be able to use magic whenever he felt like it. Harry was now hurrying through breakfast so that he could get out of this house for the rest of his life as fast as possible, as he knew that after he graduated, he no longer had to live with his uncle, aunt and his dreadful cousin, whose whole family treated him as a maid.

While he was eating his only slice of toast and looking at his cousin breathe down his share of bacon, toast and eggs, he kept hoping that his uncle would finish his breakfast and they would be on their way. Two days ago his uncle had allowed him to make a trip to Diagon Alley to get his books and stuff for school, and as he was not able to inform his best friends beforehand, he had to make the trip alone. After buying his books and things for potion class, he went to buy some new robes for school as well as bring his old robes for lengthening. He used to be the shortest Sixth Year the previous year. After waiting for so long, he had finally gotten his growth spurt this summer and the running and push-ups that he had been doing every morning had made him quite muscled. This, however, made him outgrow all his clothes. Well, all but his cousin's hand-me-downs as they were so big that no one could outgrow their size. This growth spurt made him to the height of six feet (so he was still shorter than his best friend Ron Weasley, whom Harry last saw before the beginning of summer at taller than six feet and he seemed to be still growing). Harry then exchanged some money to do some shopping out in muggle London, where he could finally get some decent looking clothes and footwear to wear in the future. He walked past some guys who were wearing boots to complement their clothing and managed to get some boots for himself. His last stop was an optician who promised spectacles within half an hour and got a new pair of glasses. He walked out of the shop with his old pair of glasses on his nose and his new pair in a plastic bag. He did not want his uncle and aunt questioning his seemingly abundance in cash so the two days after getting his new things he continued to wear his old things. His uncle did not know that his parents actually left a vault in Gringotts Bank full of gold and he wanted to keep it that way.

Finally his uncle looked up from the newspaper and moved to get up. He glared at Harry, saying "Well, I'm glad that this is the last time that I'm bringing you to that dreaded station and the last day that I'll be seeing you. You aren't coming back next summer, are you?" Harry shook his head, as he got up from his chair. Dudley grinned maliciously and Harry knew that they all couldn't wait for him to leave.

His uncle went to the door and frowned at the empty owl cage as he opened the door. "Where's that damned thing that is supposed to be in the cage?"

Harry bristled at first that his precious owl had been referred to as a 'thing' and calmed himself to endure the last half hour that he had to endure with this horrible being in front of him and answered plainly "At school" and his uncle asked not a single word more as Harry loaded his trunk and cage into the car and they set off for the station.

The trip was rather short, September the first happening to be a Sunday, causing the traffic to be smooth. Harry actually reached King's Cross Station at eight fifteen, giving him an additional forty-five minutes till his train. His uncle did not even bother to get out of the car to say good-bye and as soon as the door of the car slammed behind Harry, he drove off. Harry couldn't be happier. Looking at the station, he grinned to himself as he went off in search of the restrooms. First he took off the atrociously big t-shirt and jeans and put on a tight-fitting shirt that he bought two days ago, as well as jeans that fit him better. Then he took off his old glasses and put on his new ones. He exited the cubicle to throw away the old t-shirt and jeans, as well as all the clothes that once belonged to his cousin. Then he put his old glasses into his trunk to keep it (he just could not bring himself to throw away the pair as one of his best friends once commented that it seemed to be a Harry Potter trademark). Looking at himself in the mirror, he was quite satisfied with what he saw. The thinner metal wire frame of his new glasses brought more emphasis to his emerald eyes and make him look less childish, his messy hair was styled such that the scar was being covered and his clothes seemed to emphasize the muscles he had gained from his workout as well as the tanned complexion he had gained from his aunt forcing him to work in the garden all summer. The final touch to the whole outfit was a change of footwear from sneakers to boots. He stashed his sneakers in his truck and zipped it up. One last look at the mirror and his watch, he picked up his things and left the restroom.

Walking towards Platform Nine and Ten, he could still remember seven years ago when he stupidly asked a conductor about the way to Platform 9¾ and being scolded for being stupid. As a group of girls hurried past him, quite a few of them looked back at him, checking him out. Harry blushed slightly as he wondered if this was the right thing to do, to change his style of clothing so outrageously. He wasn't very comfortable of people in the wizarding world giving him attention because his scar made him to be the supposing 'savior' to save them from the evil overlord, as he seemed to be the only person which the Killing Curse did not work on. This Boy-who-Lived name always made him feel disgusted as he really did nothing and the scar was given to him when he was one.

_So why did you dress up to take the train?_ He asked himself. _I don't have my eye on anyone at the moment. Thank Merlin that everyone knows that I go for guys when I came out last year._

He finally confirmed his sexual preference last year, when he found himself checking his roommates out. He was so shocked that he collapsed on his bed while all his other roommates were still getting ready for bed. Ron was so concerned when he saw his pale face that he wanted to bring him to the infirmary immediately. Seamus Finnegan, one of his other roommates just asked Harry what was wrong. Harry, in his shocked state of mind, did not even attempt to lie and blurted out "I was checking you guys out." The silence after he said that made Harry look at his roommates' faces. Four pairs of eyes were staring at him unblinkingly. Then Seamus bounced up from his position beside Harry and announced "Oh Harry, don't worry. I've been checking all of you out since fourth year." Everyone turned to stare at Seamus while he happily went on changing in front of the rest.

Ron then slung his arm around Harry and said casually "I never did tell you about Bill, did I? Well, he IS gay. I don't mind gay people, so long as they are not after me. You aren't in love with me, are you?" He added worriedly, looking at Harry. Harry shook his head, noticing that Dean Thomas and Neville Longbottom, his other roommates actually didn't seem to mind as they were both smiling at him. All of them went back to changing into their pajamas. At least he didn't lose his friends over that. The next day Ron told his girlfriend Hermione Granger about Harry as she was also one of Harry's best friends and she also accepted his sexual preference. It seemed that the wizarding world was more accepting of gay people and Harry told his friends that he did not want to hide it. However, Harry, being Harry Potter the Boy-Who-Lived, was so famous that by the end of the day the whole school knew, even the professors. The new gossip from then on was who his current boyfriend was, but since he did not get a boyfriend at all the whole year, everyone was left guessing.

As he came to the area between Platform Nine and Ten, he casually looked around to see if he could sport any friends. Seeing none, and noting that he still have fifteen minutes to nine o'clock, he leaned on the wall between the two platforms and let himself fall back against it. He passed through the barrier, leaving behind the past and things that he did not want to remember, reaching Platform 9¾, to begin his seventh year in Hogwarts.


	2. On the way to Hogwarts

**Chapter 2: On the way to Hogwarts**

Passing through the barrier, the first thing he saw was the Hogwarts Express. People were boarding it, trying to find compartments for themselves. Harry looked around, trying to sport familiar faces. Then he saw a group of four redheads. Smiling, he walked towards the group. It seemed that Ron and his sister Ginny Weasley made the trip to the station with their twin older brothers Fred and George Weasley this year. _Amazing in that Mrs Weasley actually decided that those two were mature enough for this job._ He thought to himself. Fred and George graduated from Hogwarts two years before and were what you term as 'people who never grow up' as they were big pranksters when they were in school. They were now operating a joke shop in Diagon Alley which was quite profitable. Harry was even their first investor. It seemed that in times when there was an evil overload threatening the lives of people they felt that they should be able to take a few jokes, hence the success of the shop. Last that Harry heard, they were planning to open a branch of the shop in another wizarding village. However, as Harry stayed with his relatives for the summer and they absolutely hated magic and owl post, Harry did not get the chance to get much news about the wizarding world.

As he walked towards the group, he noticed that Hermione was with them, as expected, as she had the habit of spending the last two weeks of summer holidays with the Weasleys. Hermione was wearing a blue tank top with blue jeans this morning, making her look quite feminine, with her hair tied up. No one had noticed Harry yet, and Harry wondered if they would be surprised with his new changes. He stopped behind Hermione and bended down to her, whispering, "Hi Herm." Hermione spun around, expecting to see Harry's eyes slightly above her eye level but stopped in shock, before dragging her eyes slowly up to Harry's grinning face.

"Harry, what fertilizer did you eat this summer? It's been only less than three months since I last saw you! Oh you got a tan! And muscles! And new glasses! And… And new clothes!" Hermione stared at the new Harry in front of her in wonder.

Even Ron seemed astonished over the fact that his best friend had changed so much over the course of a few months. However his twin brothers did not seem so. The two of them punched Harry on the arm playfully, with Fred exclaiming, "Harry! I knew that you cleaned up good. Finally grew to the height that you should be. Thought that you are forever going to be at Ginny's height and when she even seemed to be getting taller than you, we were all getting a little worried! Looks like our dear Harry have no problems now."

George then went on, whipping out a notebook and a quill, looking very serious, "Yes, and pray tell us the brand of the fertilizers your stupid and disgusting muggle relatives bought so that we can sell it in our shop as 'the fertilizer which made Harry Potter grow tall'! Bet that can bring in lots of galleons!"

The whole group burst into laughter as Harry was trying unsuccessfully to frown at the twins as he absolutely hated people making fun of the fact that he was the Boy-Who-Lived. Ginny finally rescued him by asking everyone to not laugh at him any more and Hermione suggested that they go find a compartment.

The twins helped them load their trunks onto the train, and got off the train. Harry then looked at Ron and Hermione who were sitting opposite him, cuddling and sighed. "Ron, Herm, we are barely out of the station and you two are cuddling already. Herm, you just spent two weeks in his house, you are behaving like you haven't seen him for two months! What have you two been doing?" Hermione and Ron both blushed as they glared at the boy sitting opposite them.

"Harry, you don't know how difficult it is for them. They see each other EVERY day in school last year. Then Herm went HOME for summer and Ron missed HER like mad. Then after SO long they finally get to see each other, BUT Mum watched them like a hawk! The rule in the house is that they are only allowed to hold hands! And Fred and George keep telling on them to tease Ron that they don't have any privacy in the two weeks she was there. Just let them snog for Merlin's sake!" Ginny explained the situation with an impish smile. Ron blushed even redder. Then Ginny turned to Harry. "If you are jealous, we can snog too, you know!" Ginny's grin got even bigger.

"Well, I don't really mind, but that person at the door would." Harry replied in a mischievous tone to Ginny. He just caught sight of Ginny's boyfriend, Neville at the door of the compartment frowning at Ginny, as he heard Ginny's last comment. Neville was one of Harry's most insecure friends and it took Harry forever the year before to get the two of them together after he found out that both were interested in each other. However, Harry had noticed that Ginny had grown into a confident young lady and the relationship helped Neville feel more secure about him. _Maybe he heard that comment and thought that Ginny still liked me_ , Harry thought to himself and felt that he should explain the situation that Ginny was just joking. He, however, was surprised at what Neville said.

"Gin, you mustn't tease Harry this way, just because you have a boyfriend doesn't mean that Harry should have one. You should be on the lookout for a nice boy for Harry, not say this kind of words. Hi there, Harry! Sorry about what Gin said. Ron, I'm bringing her to another compartment to scold her. Come on Ginny." Ginny obediently followed Neville out of the compartment, after giving Harry a small wink and blushing. It seemed to Harry that Neville can't wait to say hi to Ginny either.

Ron laughed, "Scold her, my foot. Snog her to death is more like it. But at least Nev is a really nice guy, unlike that disgusting Malfoy type…"

"Ron, don't say such things. He is already pitiful enough." Hermione was frowning at her boyfriend, making Harry frown in puzzlement.

"Wait a minute, since when is Malfoy pitiful? Herm, are you sick?" Harry asked.

Draco Malfoy had been a rival of Harry's since first year when Harry rejected his hand in friendship, thinking arrogantly that he deserved a better friend than a person who made fun of people who were nice to him. From then on he had been against Harry in almost everything, from Quidditch to studies. The two of them were on par with their competition in their studies with Harry being better in Defense against Dark Arts classes and Malfoy being better in potions. Although they both lost out to Hermione, since she had the habit of studying about twenty hours per day and reading textbooks in the library for fun. The fights and quarrels between Malfoy and Harry were legendary in school and when one occurred, the whole hallway would freeze in position to watch the show. It was as if the two of them were performers. Harry once commented that if they actually charge admission to their fights and quarrels, he would be so rich that his family would not need to work for three generations. He often wondered what would have happen if he had accepted the offer then. Maybe he would have another best friend. Having more friends was better than having more enemies.

"You mean you didn't hear?" Dean asked, after coming into the compartment with Seamus. Harry shook his head.

"His parents passed away. ALL his relatives passed away. Word's out that his parents said something wrong to You-Know-Who and he was so angry that he killed them all. He's the ONLY Malfoy left." Seamus collapsed beside Harry and cuddled up to him. Harry just let him be as always while all the people in the compartment frowned at Seamus' behavior. He had the tendency to think that just because both Harry and he were gay so they could cuddle when both were unattached. Harry did notice that Dean was trying to avoid looking at the two of them. Seamus continued, not caring about the others, but staring at Harry, "Oh Harry, you have grown so much! Hmm… promise me you will lend me this shirt one of these days? I think I'm drooling…"

Harry liked the fact that someone seemed to think that he looked good, but as he was used to Seamus flirting with everyone, even Hermione, he didn't agree to anything, as he did happen to like that shirt. Something told him that if Seamus ever borrowed that shirt he would never get it back. He did grin down at Seamus who seemed to be stuck to his left arm, "Thanks Seam, but… then why is Malfoy still alive?"

"Hmm… no idea, but if he really marry Pansy after they graduate, that bitch is going to be so rich as Malfoy got all the stuff from his relatives!" Seamus pouted.

"But… isn't Malfoy blacklisted, so Pansy won't even go near him? Unless Pansy wants to be blacklisted too." Hermione frowned, thinking about the issue.

"Hey, we haven't even seen that git and you are all talking about nothing else. This is not a good topic. Change topic!" Ron exclaimed.

All of them settled down in the compartment as Seamus finally let go of Harry's arm to start a game of chess with Ron, while Harry just looked out of the window at the changing scenery outside. After a while, Harry noticed from the reflection of the window pane that Dean was staring at him. He turned to his friend and lifted his right eyebrow in question. Dean shot Seamus a look and back at Harry and then tilted his head towards the door that seemed to indicate that he wanted to talk to Harry. Harry gave a slight nod and got up from his seat.

"Hey, where are you going?" Hermione looked up from the textbook she was reading.

"Umm… I'm bored, so I'm going to walk around… I'll be back in a while." Harry answered.

"Harry, good idea. I'll join you." Dean hurriedly added and ushered Harry out of the door. Once out of the door, he pulled Harry till he came to an empty compartment and they went in.

"Okay, what's wrong, Dean?" Harry sat down opposite Dean this time looking at his friend who was frowning away and biting his lower lip. Harry had never seen his friend like that before.

Dean opened his mouth then shut it again without saying anything. He then did it again. He breathed in deeply and let his breath out and tried opening his mouth again. All this while Harry only looked at him with a questioning look, hoping that it would encourage him to open up to him. Dean never came to him with problems before. His roommates were all so different in personality. Ron would combust at hearing a single word that seemed like an insult towards his girlfriend or housemates. Neville was the insecure type who had the tendency to go speechless with fright in front of professors. Seamus was the flirty and bouncy type who seemed to be forever moving and talking. Dean was the quiet type who seemed to be mature and reasonable at all times. In other words, Dean seemed to be the last person to come to Harry with a problem.

"Well, umm… sorry for calling you out here like this. Just wondering, what happens if I keep… um… dreaming about… someone? What does that mean?" Dean finally asked.

"That… will depend on what type of dreams. Nightmares? Like when I dream of Voldemort all the time?"

"No… not nightmares. Definitely not nightmares like yours. Um… those TYPE of dreams." Harry finally found out that Dean could blush as red as Ron, because of the color that Dean's cheeks were presently.

"Oh. THOSE dreams. Well, I can quite safely say that at our age, it should be normal. And if you keep dreaming about a particular someone, then maybe, you know, you like that person." Harry was starting to see where this was coming from, as well as understanding why Dean was behaving that way just now. And he had just the idea who the other person in the dream was. He was trying hard not to smile and waiting for Dean to confirm his suspicions.

"Well, what if that person… is a guy? Does that mean that I'm gay?"

Harry smiled at Dean. "Then we can safely say that you are at least bisexual. And… maybe you should tell Seam about it." Harry had never seen Dean's eyes grow that big before as he burst into laughter.

"How do you know? I didn't… oh…. What if he doesn't like me? What if it's just lust? We have a perfect friendship going on! What if it doesn't work out and… Harry, stop laughing!" Dean looked so frantic that Harry finally realized that Dean was really feeling wretched for liking his best friend.

"Sorry Dean, you look so cute just now. Well take it slowly then. You don't have to tell him now. Just wait a while. You know what Seamus is like. Ask yourself if you can actually accept all his good points as well as all his flaws. If you can accept him as he is, and that he does like you, then… I don't see how come this is not going to work. It is just the next step after so many years of you guys being such good friends. Everyone, even Seamus and I know that we don't belong together. That's why he feel safe being near me as both of us won't mistake him as interested in me or vice versa. Look at Ron and Herm. They look stable. If any wagers are placed on which couple are the likeliest to settle down I would bet on them. And Ron liked Herm after at least three years of knowing her so well. And I think that Seam is interested in you, just that you always seem to promote yourself as a straight guy so he didn't try anything. I did see him check you out before." Harry grinned to put his friend's mind at ease.

Dean finally relaxed and sat there deep in thought. His erotic dreams had started during the summer. Before those dreams, he could safely say that he was as straight as Ron was, but after two weeks of waking up from wet dreams of Seamus and him making love, he stopped pushing away the thoughts that he liked Seamus. He actually had a secret sketchbook stashed in his trunk that was filled with images that he remembered from his dreams and had drawn upon waking up. He at first thought that it was just a phase but just now when he saw Seamus at the station, he wanted to kiss Seamus so badly that he almost couldn't stop himself. That's why he dragged Seamus in search of his other roommates thinking that if other people were around he should be able to control himself. However, seeing Seamus latched onto Harry was not a sight he wanted to see. He knew that Seamus had the habit of cuddling people be it boy or girl but found himself wanting to be in Harry's place. Thus when the opportunity arose, he decided to ask Harry.

"So I should wait until I'm sure that this is really what I want?" Dean asked Harry, who seemed willing to give him space to think about the situation at hand.

Harry turned back to Dean. "You can wait. Or just be a Gryffindor and you know, step in… but seriously, with this kind of situation out there, you do know that this is likely going to be the only year of peace left. And who knows what will happen tomorrow. If you give me a choice, I would want someone I like beside me too." Harry said, looking a little depressed. Now Dean felt really bad about bringing this problem to Harry.

"Harry, I'm sorry. I shouldn't be bringing this up to you. It seems so insignificant compared to what you…"

"No," Harry cut in, "it's not insignificant, it's important to me too, because you are my friend, and Seam is my friend too, and god knows, you guys deserve to be together if you like each other. I'm just pointing out that you shouldn't wait too long and also lamenting that I don't seem to have anyone, when all of you seemed to be at least eyeing someone and… sometimes, it gets lonely. Oh, now you're making me sappy. It's not your fault that no one likes me." Harry sighed.

"No one likes you? You are kidding me. Before you announced that you were gay, the girls were fighting to catch your eye. Then after you made half the school heart-broken over that fact, we have the boys starting to be extra friendly to you to catch your eye. It's just that they don't seem to be effective as you don't seem to like them. And this appearance change, maybe this year you would get someone." Dean was desperately trying to comfort Harry. Harry then tried to smile at Dean and pulled himself out of the sappy mood.

"My father says that no matter what, we are not supposed to talk to that idiot Malfoy again. And that we can do whatever we want to that git. So tonight, Vincent, you and Gregory can beat him up to your heart's content. He won't dare to say a word to Professor Snape tomorrow." Both Dean and Harry stared at each other with stunned expressions. Harry suddenly got up and leant against the wall behind Dean and both of them heard Vincent and Gregory grunt their agreement. The voice belonged to Pansy Parkinson and she was talking to Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle, the "bodyguards" who had for the last six years followed Malfoy around. _So what Herm said was true_ , Harry thought to himself. _Slytherin had sanctioned Malfoy_.

The two of them listened against the walls of the compartment as Pansy went on planning torture on Malfoy, with the two bodyguards who currently belonged to her grunting their agreement every now and then, till Pansy announced that she was going to change into her robes as the train was reaching Hogwarts soon. Both boys then relaxed and sat down beside each other.

"We got to warn Malfoy." Harry said softly, afraid that if they can hear Pansy, then Pansy may be able to hear them now.

Dean then nodded as well. "No one deserved to be treated that way."

"Let's keep this quiet. Not a word to any one else while I try to get to Malfoy." Harry look at Dean straight in the eye and finally Dean nodded his agreement.

"If Seam knows, everyone knows. And Ron will blow if he knew that you are helping Malfoy. He really doesn't like that guy."

"Understatement of the century. Let's go back to find them." Harry got up with Dean to make their way back to their compartment to change into their robes.

Finally the train slowed down and everyone got ready to get up to get down from the train into the horseless carriages that lined up beautifully outside the station. On the way out, Harry, Ron and Hermione saw the games keeper of Hogwarts as well as the professor in charge of teaching them Care of Magical Creatures, Hagrid, calling for the first year. As he was a personal friend to the three students, they all waved at him and he waved back, trying to guide the first years into the little boats that were the transportation for the first years to the school. All this while, Harry was looking around trying to spot the blond hair of Malfoy's in the cloud of students but he didn't seem to be anywhere in sight. Harry exchanged a frown with Dean as they settled themselves in an empty carriage which moved towards Hogwarts after the five entered.


	3. The Welcoming Feast

**Chapter 3: The Welcoming Feast**

Almost every meal was being held at the Great Hall. It was the only place in the whole school that seemed to be able to take in so many people at one go. Thus the Great Hall was enchanted to be especially grand because it was after all the venue of every important event of the school. The candles were spelled to be able to magically burn eternally and the ceiling was enchanted to show good weather, be it day or night. As Harry seated with his friends at the Gryffindor table, he looked up at the teachers' table and suddenly broke into a big grin. When Ron noticed him grinning, he too turned towards the teachers' table and realized what made Harry grin. As students drifted to their seats and noticed the teacher for the Defense against Dark Arts class, they started whispering to each other. Most of the students who did know the teacher were smiling as their previous experiences with that teacher were good, even though he was a werewolf, and these students knew that they were at least going to learn something useful this year for that particular class. Only the Slytherins seemed to be scowling away.

"Good, Professor Lupin came back. Finally. Some teacher who does know what he is teaching. The only year that I actually had a good full year of education in that class was the year he taught." Hermione beamed at Ron, who nodded in delight.

"Yup, Herm, anyone is better than that idiot who took us last year. He kept assigning us essays because he is afraid of talking in front of people and I think at the end of the year I knew more about DADA than he did." Ron laughed, as it was a recognized fact that he hated writing essays and doing research, totally opposite to his girlfriend.

Professor Remus Lupin, the new DADA professor, was seated beside Professor Severus Snape, the Potions Master of Hogwarts, and was trying to see if he could catch sight of Harry. He finally saw a tall boy with messy black hair and bright emerald eyes smiling at him. He smiled back as he relaxed in his seat. _He's grown so tall, and looks so much like his father now._ Remus thought to himself. _And he looked much healthier with his new tan._ He looked to his right, at his colleague next to him, who was rigidly looking at the Slytherin House tables, especially the seventh-year students. Severus Snape was the house master of Slytherin house and Remus understood that after what happened during the summer, he was especially worried about how the graduating students will turn out as they are the next targets for Voldemort to recruit as his newest death eaters. Knowing what Professor Dumbledore, the Headmaster had planned for tonight meant that the dinner would be a longer affair than usual.

As the students all settled down, the door opened again, with Deputy Headmistress Professor Minerva McGonagall leading the first year students into the Great Hall. The whole group of eleven-year-olds all looked around the place in wonder as they followed her into this enchanting hall. They were followed by Hagrid, who being a half giant, seemed so tall that quite a few of the first years barely came up to his knees. Harry wondered if he was ever that short. Thinking back to when he was eleven and first saw Hagrid, he must have been that short as well. He exchanged a smile with Hagrid as he passed Harry's table. When Hagrid seated at the teacher's table, Professor McGonagall brought out the sorting hat and it started reciting a poem about the founders of the school and the different houses.

As Harry listened to it, he realized that this was the last sorting of the first years he was going to see. Memories flowed in his mind as he recalled what happened the last six years. Before he was eleven, he never knew that there was a world out there that actually wanted him alive. Then he found out the truth about his parents' death and in the process of trying to live till his twelfth birthday, he faced Voldemort for the second time in his life. In the year after that he faced Voldemort's sixteen-year-old self in the Chamber of Secrets. The year after that he found out that his godfather Sirius Black was alive and had been wrongly accused of the crime of betraying Harry's parents. Then came the year in which he took part in the Triwizard Tournament, nearly dying in the end when dueling with Voldemort. They say that a cat had nine lives. He himself wondered how many lives he has. For the past two years, Voldemort did not really try to come after him. But he did send his death eaters to harm different wizards and witches as well as some muggles. He seemed to be trying to gather as much power as possible before the day Harry graduate, in ready to kill Harry. Harry then briefly wondered if Pansy already received the Death Mark.

He suddenly realized that the sorting was almost over. Looking at the other end of the long table, he realized that there seemed to be less new Gryffindors this year. However there were even less new Slytherins this year, with there being only four of them, in compared to about twelve Ravenclaws and fourteen Hufflepuffs. There are at least eight Gryffindors. Then Professor Dumbledore stood up from his seat to make his speech.

"To the first years, welcome to Hogwarts and please take note that the forbidden forest is forbidden to all students and no magic is allowed in the hallways and the Great Hall. I would like to introduce Remus Lupin as our new Defense against Dark Arts professor. Some of you may be able to remember that he taught here before. Yes, he is a werewolf, and he is also a good teacher who is willing to help all of you. Due to our potion master's ability, on the full moons he will drink a potion that makes him harmless during his transformation. All students are to note that Professor Lupin owns a black dog called Snuffles, as you can all see here," as he indicated a big black dog which had sat down in front of the teachers' table, "and if any of you see Snuffles loitering in the hallways in the daytime, don't be afraid to approach it to pet it. Snuffles will be helping the professors in the security of the castle at night. If you are out of your dorms after curfew and being caught by the dog is the same as being caught by a professor, and will mean the loss of house points for you. Now, let us all welcome Professor Lupin and Snuffles." Professor Dumbledore said, as the students clapped for the new professor and the black dog that was furiously wagging its tail.

"Professor Lupin brought Snuffles! I didn't even see him just now." Harry exclaimed to Ron who was grinning at him.

Professor Dumbledore then held up his hands and the whole hall silenced. "I know that you all are hungry but there is a certain matter that needs to be settled before everybody eats. As many of you have come to know, a very strange thing happened during the summer. The whole Malfoy clan have been slaughtered by Voldemort and the only living heir of the family is Draco Malfoy, a current seventh year Slytherin. The reason for the horrible slaughter was due to the fact that Mr Draco Malfoy refused to be recruited by Voldemort. Due to his action, he had been blacklisted by all the Death eaters. Since we have another student here, Mr. Harry Potter from Gryffindor, who is under the same case here, we decided that it is easier to protect both students in the same place. Mr Malfoy is taken out of Slytherin and will spend the last year under no house. However, he will be residing in the Seventh year Gryffindor Dorm together with Mr Potter, and I sincerely hope that all Gryffindor students will allow him the same kind of respect and protection you have offered to Mr Potter all these years." Draco Malfoy stepped out from a side door and sneered at Snuffles in front of him. The dog seemed to narrow his eyes and got up from his spot to sit at Remus' feet, holding his head high as if he could not stand the sight of Malfoy.

"What? That git is going to sleep in our room? Protect him, my foot. I hope he…ow…" Ron stopped suddenly as Hermione nudged him very painfully with her elbow.

"Dean, move a seat will you?" Harry asked Dean who was seated beside him and Dean immediately moved to make a space between Harry and himself. Harry stood up, feeling the stare of everyone in the Great Hall. He hated attention like this, and he did not like Malfoy very much, but he knew that he had to make a move publicly to accept him, otherwise he may not survive the night in the Gryffindor dorms, much less a year. He hated himself for being the boy-who-lived, but he does know what was expected of him. Somehow the wizarding community viewed him as a 'savior' and he had learnt very early in this school that what he said does carry some weight, and if he accepted Malfoy as a friend in front of the whole school, at least the Gryffindors, Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs would leave him alone for the rest of the year. And strangely enough, he was becoming tired of the rivalry between the two of them, and he knows that having Malfoy on the same side as him would be good for the cause.

All the seventh years of each house sat all the way at the end of the hall, thus Malfoy would have to walk almost the whole stretch of the long table to get to where Harry was standing, waiting. As Malfoy was walking towards him, Harry took the chance to take a really good look at him. Malfoy's hands were both in the side pockets of his school robe, as he arrogantly strolled towards Harry. Even after what happened, he did not cower under the stare of everyone and walked as if he owned the world and it was his right to make Harry wait for him to reach there. His face was devoid of any expression but his grey eyes burned defiantly as he neared Harry, staring straight at Harry's emerald orbs. It was at that sudden moment that Harry realized that Draco Malfoy was really stunning in the looks compartment. Being the Slytherin seeker made him fit like an athlete and his silvery blond hair is so neat that Harry was tempted to run his fingers through the silky strands just to mess them up. His features were such that it was obvious he had aristocratic blood and all his beautiful features along with that body were enough to drive anyone crazy. However, what made Harry suck in a quick breath were Malfoy's eyes. That defiant look was making his blood flow faster and it was obvious that Malfoy himself knew how good he looked.

_He grew a lot this summer, in all the right places too. He used to be just cute, but now he is gorgeous. And his eyes… they are just sucking me in. Did he just check me out? I know he goes for guys but… stop thinking about it._ Draco thought to himself as he walked towards Harry. _His hair… he's wearing boots… argh… stop thinking about it._

Malfoy stopped in front of him and the two of them stared at each other for about five seconds. Then Harry lifted his right hand.

"Well, looks like you decided to join my head on the chopping board. I know that the past six years we were providing frequent entertainment for the school with our fights, Draco. Can we put that aside? Friends?" Harry said, loud enough for his voice to echo within the silent hall, while staring at Draco's eyes.

Draco looked down at the offered hand, understanding what Harry was trying to show the whole school, and remembered Harry's rejection of friendship in his first year. Harry Potter was the first person whom he ever wanted to have as a friend and not acquaintances like Goyle and Crabbe. That night after the rejection Draco had lied awake on his bed swearing to himself that he was never going to let Harry Potter hurt him like that again. However, every time Harry defended that Weasley and insulted Draco, he was hurt again and again. _Maybe I am just a sadist_ , he silently sighed to himself as he lifted his right hand and grasped Harry's hand. _Just like I'm opening myself to him all over again._

"Deal, Harry." Draco said, just as loud, as the both of them shook on it. Harry did not let go of his hand and used it to pull Draco to sit down next to him. Then all a sudden the Great Hall was filled with whispers of all the students regarding what had just happened and magically the food appeared in front of everyone. Then did Harry let go of Draco's hand. Harry then glanced at Professor Dumbledore, who gave him a slight nod and he nodded back at the Professor. Then he realized that the people sitting near him were all staring at Draco and not eating.

"I'm Dean Thomas."

"Seamus Finnegan"

"Nev… Neville Longbottom"

"I'm Ginny Weasley."

"Hermione Granger"

Then, silence. Everyone turned to stare at Ron, who was looking at his clutched hands and seemed to be about to blow his top. Ron sent a glare at Draco and asked coldly, "You refused to be a death eater?"

Draco blinked once and locked his jaws, before nodding, never breaking the gaze of Ron's eyes.

Ron sighed, relaxed his body, and stretched out his right hand towards Draco. "I'm doing this for Harry. I'm Ron Weasley."

Draco shook his hand and let go. "And I'm Draco Malfoy. Just call me Draco will do. Thank you everyone." Ron turned back to Hermione to find that she seemed to be about to burst into tears. All she did take a deep breath, smiled at her boyfriend and start to eat. Everyone at the table started to eat too. Draco finally relaxed his rigidly held body as he realized that all of them had just accepted him into their group and from what he observed in the past, it meant that all was going to be well at least in the dorm room.

"Did you know that Pansy asked Goyle and Crabbe to beat you up tonight? I was going to find you to warn you. Thank Merlin that you are joining our dorm tonight." Harry commented lightly, in a soft tone so that people from outside this group would not overhear the conversation.

Draco shot Harry a glance, lifting his right eyebrow. "You think I don't know? She is so predictable." He went on eating as if it did not bother him in the least.

"What? That bitch!" Ron muttered the later part of the comment to himself. Harry smiled softly to himself as Draco turned to look at Ron in astonishment after hearing that. Ron's personality was such that his temper was very fiery, but once you gained his trust, he would defend you with his life. This was the reason why Harry felt that he was so lucky to get a friend he could depend on for protection. Draco then gave Harry a glance and saw that he seemed to expect that reaction from Ron as Harry went on eating without pause.

"Harry, pass the chicken chop bowl, will you?" Draco asked Harry, eyeing the bowl that was in front of Ron. Harry sent Draco a glance, looked down at Draco's fork which Draco still held in his left hand, reached over to take the fork out of Draco's hand, used the fork to poke haphazardly into a piece of chicken chop from the bowl and placed the fork with the chicken chop back on Draco's plate. He then went on eating. Draco looked dumbfounded down at the slice of meat on his plate, sneaked a look up to the occupants of the table and saw Seamus trying to hide his smile by pressing his lips together in a straight line.

"Draco, one thing that you have to learn when you are eating at the Gryffindor table is that, we don't pass the food bowls. The best course of the table will always appear in front of Ron because the house elves know that he is the biggest eater in our whole group. What we want, we just pass the fork or spoon to others to ask them to take for us if we are too far away. We share all the food like a family. The only rule is that we don't talk with our mouth full. Herm says it's disgusting. Oh. And goodies will be shared within the house in the common room as well. Ok?" Dean just lightly patted Draco on his left shoulder. Draco then noticed that Hermione had given her spoon to Harry and without a sound from the girl Harry scooped some mashed potato onto the spoon and dumped everything back onto Hermione's plate. It was obvious to him that after sitting together for all meals for six years had taught Harry the ways of Hermione's mind that she no longer had to instruct him. The whole group surrounding him was also doing the same thing and it seemed that he was the only outsider. Draco then started cutting and eating his chicken chop.

Draco then recalled that in the past, whenever the whole group settled down to eat, Harry would choose a seat first and everyone would settle into seats around and in front of him. Wherever he went, it was the same case. At least Ron and Hermione would be with him at almost all times. Students from Gryffindor seemed to know where the other housemates were and had the habit of keeping an eye out on their fellow housemates and Harry. Was this the protection that Dumbledore was talking about? That the students understood that in the case of an attack they would all have to make sure that they are shielding Harry with at least their bodies? The paintings along the hallways all knew who Harry Potter was and at the first sign of Harry in danger, they would alert the teachers and the headmaster. Even the house elves were familiar with Harry and his group of friends. So all they were going to do was to include him in their actions and protect him along with Harry. Realizing that there was a protection network already in place around him made him relaxed a little more, as he felt slightly more protected. It was true that he would lose the privacy that he had back in the Slytherin house as everyone only noted their own business, but at least he would be able to sleep more in peace.

"Ron." Harry pointed to the mango pudding that was to be the dessert for the night that was in front of Hermione and indicated two with his fingers. Ron took two of the cups with the mango pudding and gave them to Harry. Harry then placed one beside Draco's plate and started eating the other one. Draco looked at Harry and lifted one of his eyebrows. All Harry did was grin back at him and continued eating his mango pudding. Draco then noticed that Seamus also took two mango puddings from the other side and reached across to put one in front of Dean. All Dean did was give a slight nod of acknowledgement. Ginny did the same for Neville. _Was everyone doing things in pairs here?_ Draco wondered to himself. He did notice that Dean's eyes kept wandering to Seamus, who was opposite him, during the dinner. Were those two together? No, it didn't seem like they were a couple. Seamus had often flaunted himself as a gay man while he remembered Dean having a girlfriend before. Unless things happened during the summer. And he didn't know any of the two well enough to ask any of such questions. He would just have to file it up at the back of his mind and observe the two for a while.

When the majority of them had finished the dessert, Harry noticed Professor Lupin heading towards their group with Snuffles in front of him. Snuffles stopped to allow some fourth and Fifth year girls to pet and scratch him, with Remus waiting for him patiently. Finally they reached Harry.

"Harry, I need to talk to you. Let's go up to your dorm." At this, the whole group got up as a whole as Ron snatched another pudding before all the food disappeared. An house elf then appeared with a 'pop' in front of Ron, handed him a small bell and disappeared with a 'pop' again. Ron just stuffed the bell into his pockets. Both Professor Lupin and Draco looked at Ron with confusion. Harry quickly explained the situation.

"At the end of last year, we made a deal with the house elves down in the kitchens. Gryffindors always have weekend parties, and we got so tired of sneaking down to the kitchens to carry the food up. So that bell will summon their head elf and we'll order the things we need from up in the common room. They will help clean up too. In exchange, we give them our old clothing or socks. That way they would be protected against the cold in the winter. It's so much more convenient for us." Harry explained.

Professor Lupin smiled. "That's a brilliant idea. Who thought of that?"

"Seeing that it's Ron who kept the bell, I assumed that it's Ron who was the mastermind? Good one Ron." Draco deduced. Ron just smiled as everyone made their way back to the Gryffindor dorms. Draco's earlier wonderings were correct as they all walked with Harry and Draco right in the middle of the group and Ron and Hermione's watchful eyes making sure that no one was going to create trouble for them. They came to the portrait of the Fat Lady and as Hermione was a prefect, she gave the password and the group stepped into the common room when the portrait swung open.


	4. Meeting Sirius

**Chapter 4: Meeting Sirius**

As soon as the whole group stepped into the common room, Professor Lupin turned to them, "Can all the seventh year boys please follow me? Miss Granger, Miss Weasley, please follow me as well." He then turned towards the staircase of the boys dorms and went up the steps with Snuffles following behind him. Hermione and Ginny looked at the boys and shrugged, following the whole group up the stairs.

Past experience told the Gryffindor students that the rooms are labeled along the passageway as the first and second years nearest to the common room, their doors facing each other, and the seventh years all the way at the end. Counting the doors, the seventh year dorm room should be after the third pair of oppositely facing doors they come to. However, as they came to the third pair of doors, they realized that there is no other door beyond it. Professor Lupin was waiting in front of a portrait of a boy seated on a lion and playing a charm to a snake using his flute. All the Gryffindors looked at the painting with surprise as the portrait wasn't there the previous year.

The boy in the portrait realized that they are in front of his portrait and said, "Hi, I'm Marcus. Password?"

"Protection" Professor Lupin replied.

"Okay. See you guys around. You too Snuffles." He cheerfully waved at the group as the panel swung open, opening to a small common room. This common room was different from the one downstairs as it seemed to be supposed to function as a study room. It was circular and along the walls were tables for studying. Chairs were tucked into the tables and the centre of the room was four one-person couches surrounding a small coffee table. The whole group followed Professor Lupin as he settled himself in one of couches in the centre, Harry, Draco and Snuffles settled into the other couches as the others went to the tables to pull the chairs towards the centre to surround the four of them. When everyone settled down, Harry spoke up.

"Professor Lupin, I told everyone here about Snuffles in my fifth year. Unless Draco doesn't know about Snuffles…" Harry looked at Professor Lupin, not wishing to say more in case Draco really did not know the true identity of Snuffles.

Draco grinned at the dog sitting opposite him. "What he means is, Sirius, you can change back now."

Everyone was staring intently at the dog as it started to become bigger and bigger, finally a human being was seated on the couch the dog previously was on. "This is so much easier to communicate, isn't it? Hi Harry. Merlin! You have grown so tall," Sirius Black commented at he gave Harry a hug, "Hi Ron. Hi Herm. Hi um… I didn't catch the names of the rest."

Harry looked at the black-haired man who, after four years, was still on the run, after escaping from Azkaban in his third year. Since his godfather started following Professor Lupin around as his pet dog, he seemed more rested and healthy, being less pale as he was no longer being locked up. Harry hoped that Sirius knew what he was doing by being at Hogwarts but knowing Professor Dumbledore, he would try his best to protect Sirius.

"Okay, we'll have enough time to catch up in the next few weeks. First things first. Professor Dumbledore felt that since we are placing Draco together with Harry, then we should try our best to protect the two of them. Thus we took the seventh year dorm room and convert it to what you see here. There are two doors there, as you have noticed. One is a smaller room than the other. The smaller room only has two beds. We would like to ask Miss Granger and Miss Weasley to shift up here. Is it okay?" Both Ginny and Hermione nodded, as Ron grinned happily. "Even though we have two girls up here, no funny business is allowed, Mr Weasley and Mr Longbottom?" Ron and Neville blushed and nodded. "Okay. Obviously the other room is for the guys. As there are six of you, we made the room slightly bigger. The password for the portrait of the Fat Lady is changed every week. But the portrait outside here will be different. The password for Marcus to open the panel will be changed on every Wednesday and Sunday. I know that the additional password may be tedious for you all, but it will be necessary. The password for tonight is Protection. Later before you all sleep, one of you go out to Marcus and settle with him the password for tomorrow till Wednesday. The only other people who are allowed in here are the professors and the Headmaster. You have to make sure that you don't let anyone in here. Minerva would have made the announcement to all the other students of Gryffindor just now regarding the fact that it is prohibited for all students other then yourself to enter this room. Get it?" Professor Lupin made sure that everyone nodded. Neville was frowning because he had the tendency to forget passwords.

"Okay. Everyone get up. I need to show you something." Sirius got up from his seat and led everyone into the room on the left. There were six beds in the rectangular room, with two rows of three. Everyone's trunks were left in a pile in front of the first bed. When everyone saw the arrangement, Ron, Dean, Seamus and Neville hurriedly claimed their trunks and move it to put on the beds they chose. Draco and Harry were left staring at the arrangement the other four boys made. _Another protection arrangement in place._ Draco marveled to himself. _They didn't even need to think._ Neville and Seamus were nearest to the door and restrooms. Dean was beside Seamus and Ron was beside Neville. Harry picked up his things and moved it to the inter-most bed beside Ron and Draco moved his things to the inter-most bed beside Dean's.

"Another thing you need to note is that should anyone attack from the door, the girls are to make their way here. Everyone, look here," Sirius said, as he went to the wall Draco's and Harry's beds were leaning against and used his wand to tap a brick right in the centre of the wall, opening a panel that is large enough for one person to pass though at a time. "When you pass through this panel, just make sure that the last person pull the panel close. Just walk along the passageway and it will open to one of the secret rooms of this castle. Only Professor Dumbledore knows the location of that room. Once you reach there, stay there. When the attack is over Professor Dumbledore will go and fetch you. In that room, a map similar to the Marauders' Map is on one of the walls. Use that to monitor the situation within the castle. Should the map show that the castle has been taken under control of Voldemort, use the fireplace in the room to get out of the castle completely. That fireplace is well stocked with Floo Powder. Floo to somewhere neutral, like the Leaky Cauldron. Do NOT Floo to the Burrow. It's too obvious. If you choose the Leaky Cauldron there is the chance that Voldemort can't find you once you get into muggle London. Attempt to lose yourself in the crowd so that the Death-eaters can't find you. If you reach that stage, do not trust anyone anymore other than the eight of you here. You need to know how to protect yourself. Understand?" When Sirius finished his instructions, everyone slowly nodded, digesting his instructions. Many of them, like Neville, Seamus and Dean were very pale as they realized the seriousness of the matter.

"It means that should Hogwarts really fall into Voldemort's hands, the eight of us will most likely be the only people who will survive the attack?" Harry asked in an emotionless voice that Draco had never heard before.

Professor Lupin looked at Harry and nodded. "The rest of us will be involved in the defense of the attack. Voldemort will have to get through the entire first sixth years of the Gryffindor boys to get to Marcus. Then he had to get through Marcus. Marcus was told that should his portrait be destroyed, he is to trigger the system such that all of you inside will hear an alarm to know that outside is being attacked and to lock the panel against opening at all cost. Hopefully that will allow you all enough time to escape through this panel before the death-eaters destroy the panel that Marcus locked."

Everyone was then led out to the common room. "Even though this is like your own common room, make sure you go down to the Gryffindor common room too. It's not good to be cooped up here. Join those weekend parties. Socialize with you fellow housemates. Enjoy your last year at Hogwarts. Those precautions are only for the attacks, which may not even happen. Are you all going to be alright here?" Sirius asked. Everyone nodded and then after reminding them to change the password, Sirius changed back into his animagus form and both of them left the dorm.

When the door closed behind them, Ron collapsed into one of the chairs. "Does anyone feel like puking?" Ginny nodded to his question, leaning against Neville, who seemed to be quivering. Hermione moved behind Ron's chair and gently massaged the back of his neck.

"I'm sorry. If I never came to Hogwarts, then you all would be having a normal seven-year education in here, instead of living in fear. Maybe I should go to Professor Dumbledore and just tell him to take me out of the dorms and…" Harry leant against one of the tables, not wanting to look at anyone's face.

"Harry, that's nonsense. Don't make me beat you up. We are here because you are our friend and we are willing to do anything for you. That's why we are in Gryffindor. Friends and family matter a lot to us. After six years in the same dorm room, YOU matter to us. So don't let me hear this nonsense coming out from your mouth again." Seamus cut Harry off in a very serious and annoyed tone. Everyone in the room was very surprised as they had never seen Seamus so serious before. Harry looked at Seamus, knowing at that precise moment that Seamus had just pledged his loyalty to do anything to protect him. Looking around the room, he saw similar looks on everyone's faces. Until he came to Draco's face, whose emotionless face showed nothing, but his eyes blazed with a tint of… envy?

"Draco?" Harry asked questioning.

Draco lifted one of his eyebrows but the envy was still in his eyes. "Harry, let me ask you something. Did every Gryffindor get a prep talk when they were sorted into the house? Did the students of your house have the obligation to take note of where you are at all times? When you walk from class to class, did your friends have to surround you so that you are protected from attack? Why did they surround you when having meals? Did they let you choose the bed you want in the new dorm room or did they do what they just exhibited in front of us just now by stationing themselves near the door? Did they do it subconsciously or was the 'protection' deliberately set up by Dumbledore?" It was then that Draco saw the look of astonishment on Harry's face when he finally understood what was Draco was talking about and had been in front of him for the past six years. Looking around at all the others in the room, Draco saw similar astonished looks on the others' faces. He mockingly sighed at himself and realized that it really was subconscious on the part of Harry's friends to protect him. He turned to walk towards the boys' room to take care of his luggage, saying softly, "Now you know why I have to be taken out of Slytherin."

Harry stared at the back of Draco's figure as he disappeared into their room. He looked so lonely. As an 'outsider' it took Draco less then three hours to see what had been in front of him for six years. He recalled that since as a first year, after the welcoming feast, he would subconsciously let everyone enter the dorm room before him. His experience with his relatives made him used to walking behind everyone when entering a room. When they chose their beds, he had just accepted the only bed left, happy to at least GET a bed, never wondering why he had always got the bed furthest from the door. He never noticed that his friends in the recent two years had persistently waited for him outside the classroom to walk with him to the next class no matter how late he was detained by the professor. He just accepted it as house spirit. Then he remembered an incident when he was in the infirmary the previous year. Draco was also injured from the same Quidditch match. When he woke up, he was greeted by the numerous get-well cards on the table beside his bed, some of them even from students whom he never knew. When he glanced at Draco's bed, his table was empty, as if no one cared that he was lying in the infirmary. However Harry just shrugged it off at that moment. Then he recalled offering friendship to Draco in the Great Hall just now and briefly wondered how Draco had survived the six years in Slytherin.

Looking at Ron, he could tell that his best friend also came to the same conclusion as him, when Ron turned from staring at the door of their room to him and gave a small smile. Harry returned the smile. At that moment, Harry felt very content, as he looked around at all his good friends beaming at him.

"Harry, what do you think is Draco's sexual preference? We need to get YOU a boyfriend." Seamus grinned impishly at Harry, as Harry blushed.

"Well, he IS hot." Dean commented.

"Dean! Were you checking Draco out? How could you! You don't even check ME out, how could you check HIM out!" Seamus pouted, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"Um… I…" Dean shot a pleading look at Harry and Harry decided to step in before Dean blurt out anything he might regret.

"Seam, Dean was just trying to help you with YOUR argument, why are you trying to bite his head off? Unless… you want Dean to check YOU out? Is there something you should tell Dean?" Harry cheekily asked, trying to help Dean test the waters. Seamus refused to meet Harry's eyes and to the amazement of everyone present in the room, he blushed.

"I… no… just that I thought… Dean is straight." He frowned and quickly walked towards their room. "I'm going to unpack." He said as he went through the door.

Everyone was staring at the doorway again.

"Um, was there something I missed? Did I just see our dear Seamus blush? Dean, why are you grinning madly?" Ron exclaimed, confused.

"So was that the hint you were looking for? How are you going to thank me?" Harry mischievously nudged Dean who was beside him. Dean just couldn't stop grinning as he felt so relieved. It was quite obvious that Seamus did feel an attraction towards him. So all he had to do now was to make sure that he had to approach Seamus carefully.

"He does look cute when he pouts huh?" He softly said as he also walked towards the door.

"Finally. I thought they are never going to take the hint that they like each other." Neville said sitting down, pulling Ginny down onto his lap. Harry, Ron and Hermione turned to Neville in shock. Neville continued on. "Maybe we should add on the bet that Seamus ends up with Dean. Since everyone betted that he will end up with Harry, because they are both gay. No one took into the account that Dean may be bisexual." Ginny nodded. "Harry, can I choose the password for the first two weeks? I need to get use to the system." Harry nodded, still speechless with shock. "Come on, Ginny, let's go add on the bet. Something tells me that we'll win very soon. We'll tell you guys the password later." He got up with Ginny and went out of the panel together.

The only people that left in the room were Harry, Ron and Hermione. The first one who spoke first was Hermione. "Umm… maybe Neville is not as… clueless as we thought. I'm… going to go unpack. Night, Ron." She gave Ron a peck on his cheek and headed towards her room.

Ron and Harry were left staring at each other. Then both of them suddenly burst into laughter.

"Did I hear Neville say that there is a wager on my love life?" Harry finally said, after they finished laughing.

"As usual. You are THE Harry Patter. But maybe it's time you get someone. Everyone seemed to be pairing up. And… Malfoy didn't seem that bad now."

"Are my ears kidding me? Did I just hear Ron Weasley suggest that?"

"Don't think I didn't notice you checking him out in the Great Hall. For your information, I saw him check you out too. And I do think that it's time YOU settle down. And don't give me that crap about not wanting to endanger anyone. And if Draco Malfoy is anymore endangered, he'll be dead. But the main thing is… what do you feel about him?" Ron asked, crossing his legs and placing his hands in front of him. He had been in this position of a 'psychiatrist' for Harry before, waiting patiently while Harry sort out his thoughts and bounce ideas off him.

Harry remembered the Draco Malfoy he knew for the past six years. Then he remembered that when he heard Pansy order Crabbe and Goyle to beat Draco, there was a sense of protectiveness that he was not sure if it was due to the fact that he was attracted to Draco or that Draco was a fellow human being. _I am attracted to him, that's for sure,_ Harry thought, _but I don't want one-night-stands. I want something that lasts._

So all he replied Ron was "I don't know, Ron, I really don't know."


	5. Getting to Know Each Other

**Chapter 5: Getting to Know Each Other**

"Argh… where the hell is it? I hope I didn't leave that at home. Knowing my luck, the first lesson will be double potions with the Slytherins. Now that stupid work assignment is… here! Yes!"

Harry opened his eyes. Trust Ron to scramble for his summer assignments now. He himself checked that he had all his summer assignments ready in his bag the previous night, before he went to sleep. He lazily sat up in bed, trying to be totally coherent with his thoughts before he opened his curtains to face Ron and the world. Somehow, the thought of Potions class no longer seemed that bad because he knew that there was at least one less person against him this year.

He pulled open his curtains. "Morning." He greeted everyone.

"Morning, Harry. For a moment I thought that you were never going to wake up. Looks like I'm never going to sleep in for the rest of the year. You should have seen how Herm looked this morning when she stormed into our room, went to my bed and pulled me up by my ear. She and my mum can compete." Ron sighed, stuffing his books into his bag.

"But I thought that last year, even though you could sleep in every Sunday, but you woke up early on your own because you knew she wanted to have early breakfast so that she can rush to the library to do research?" Harry commented.

"All this shows that Hermione has you whipped at seventeen. Imagine how your life is going to be if you married her." A voice drawled from the bed beside Harry's.

Harry looked over at that bed. "Morning, Draco."

"But I don't mind waking up early for HER." Ron frowned at himself as he got up. "Harry. Ten minutes."

Harry nodded, and grabbed his stuff to wash up.

"Ten minutes what?" Draco asked.

"Ten minutes for me to get up, wash up and dressed to face Snape for double Potions. Our schedule had always been sadistic over the years. Or have you forgotten?" Harry grinned at Draco. Draco was already dressed in his school robe, his hair neatly combed and his bag ready to go. He picked up his bag and looked at his mirror one last time.

"I'll see you outside. Need to ask Hermione something regarding the Charms homework."

Within ten minutes, Harry was dressed and ready to go. They exited through the panel, greeted Marcus by introducing themselves to Marcus so that he knew exactly who reside in the room. They then went down the stairs to the Gryffindor common room, which had some Gryffindors sitting around waiting for their friends to go for breakfast. Then they saw a short-haired Chinese girl rushing up from the girls' dorm and heading towards them.

"Harry! Didn't get to talk to you last night. You should have heard the speech that Prof. gave to the whole house. And great show last night. All the lower years were awed by the performance that you and Malfoy gave in the Great Hall. Hey Malfoy!" she cheerfully exclaimed, while pulling Harry out of the common room by his hand.

"Day… How many times have I told you that the hand you are pulling is attached to my body? Anyway, Draco, this is Day Lee, fifth year. Day… let go! I can walk on my own." Harry was quickening his steps to match the pace that Day had set.

"Well, Day sort of adopted Harry as an older brother two years ago. Day was an only child and had always been lonely before she came to Hogwarts. She was really hyperactive in the first two years she came but Harry got her to convert all her excess energy into playing Quidditch as a chaser. That's why she's so remarkable down at the pitch." Ron explained to Draco. Draco knew who Day Lee was. He had to admit that on the pitch, that girl's skills were impressive. The reason why after so many years Slytherin still lost the Quidditch Cup to Gryffindor was due to the Gryffindor team's ability to come up with the best people to replace the seniors who graduated. Their chasers were disciplined yet aggressive enough; their beaters had the ability to synchronize with each other to protect their players, their keeper was competent enough and their seeker was very skillful in the air. Slytherins tended to have students who were clumsier in comparison.

"I have to admit that she's good. As Keeper and Captain, I bet that your people are going to have a good year huh? Your team was the only team not affected by the graduating batch last year." Draco clapped Ron on his back. Ron had managed to obtain the Keeper's position since Oliver Wood graduated, and Draco had to say that Ron was really good. After the Weasley twins co-captained the team to one more year of victory, Ron got the position as Captain of the team. The beaters were replaced by Colin and Dennis Creevy, who as brothers have the brotherly bond between them. Of course their seeker, Harry Potter, was one of the best seekers Hogwarts had seen in this century. "Now, Ron, there IS something I need to ask you about. How is it that… you can just ignore all that happened in the past six years and just… you know… for goodness' sake, we are talking about Quidditch as if we had been buddies! I know that Harry was forced to allow me into his little group here but…" Draco looked at Ron as he tried to phrase his question. He himself just couldn't get over the fact that he had been friendly with Harry Potter and Ron Weasley when he was so used to sneering and smirking at them.

Ron seemed to think for a while, trying to phrase his answer honestly. "Truthfully, I haven't really completely accepted it yet. There's still a lot of forgiving to do for all the insults you gave to the whole group of us. All I'm doing is putting the want of beating you up on hold because of the way Dumbledore phrased his words last night. I know that out of Harry, Herm and myself, I am what you consider as the extreme one. For me, it is normally just black and white. So in this You-Know-Who against Harry thing, if you had refused to join that evil bastard, then you must be on our side. After all, you did lose all your relatives due to that 'no' that you gave. For that I'm willing to give you a chance. And from last night till now, I haven't heard you really insult me yet. And also the fact that when Herm already okayed you, and if I don't, then… you know what I mean right?" Ron flushed and looked helplessly at Draco. Draco just grinned impishly and nodded. He then reminded himself to be extra nice to Hermione, since she seemed to be holding the leash in this relationship. "And I've heard Dean says that sports talk is universal. It doesn't matter if you are strangers or buddies, even enemies." Saying this, he noticed that they are nearing the Great Hall and his stomach grumbled.

Harry was waiting for the whole group outside the Great Hall, leaning against the wall and doing some catching up with Day. Day was rambling on about her summer and complaining against the sheer amount of homework the professors assigned them. He was just listening to her rambling as it had been the way for the past two years. He remembered back on the first day of his fifth year he found Day sitting desolately in the common room during lunch time when he rushed back to the dorm to retrieve a book that he forgot. She was facing the fire with her tears flowing down silently from her eyes. When the portrait opened, she didn't even look up. Harry, out of concern for her, started to ask her why she was so sad. She replied that she lost points that morning for being too restless to sit still in class and everyone in her year ignored her because of that. Harry had just finished a potions class where Professor Snape had deducted points for he breathing too loudly. He told her about his potions class and persuaded her to go to lunch with him. From then on, she often came to him for advice and he persuaded her to become a chaser in her fourth year when all the chasers in the team graduated. One thing that Harry liked about Day was that she always seemed so cheerful and hyperactive all the time. On a down day, she could perk the whole group's spirit up.

"Harry, you are stoning. You haven't even got into Snape's class yet. So tell me, isn't Draco Malfoy hot? Do you think he will prefer me, or you?" Day pulled him out of his thoughts. Since Day found out that he was gay, the two of them had been checking out guys together.

"I don't know. He didn't tell me. Why don't you ask him?" Harry jokingly suggested.

"Okay." Day let go of Harry's hand and went bounding up to Draco before Harry could say anything to her.

Draco nearly couldn't stop himself from crashing into Day when she started towards him. Day caught hold of both his hands and pulled him into the Great Hall. She could see Harry frowning. _Hmm… you told me to ask him._ Day thought to herself. She steered the surprised Draco to one of the seats and dropped herself to the seat beside him.

"So tell me, you prefer girls or guys?" Day asked Draco boldly.

By then the group had reached the two of them and Harry sat down on the other side of Draco. The whole group was treated to the sight of Draco Malfoy opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish and a pair of doe-like eyes staring unblinking up at him. The whole group, in fact the whole table, heard the question and were all waiting with anticipation for his answer. After another five seconds of silence from Draco, Day decided to shift to Plan B. She started to blink a few times and the sides of her mouth turned downwards. She whimpered softly like an injured puppy and looked at Draco with eyes that looked like that of a kicked puppy. She then looked down at her lap and said softly in a hurt tone, "You don't want to tell me huh?" and sighed. She then shifted to face the table and looked at her plate, like she was going to cry. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a panicked look appear on Draco's face. _Good. They all hate it when girls cry. And that stupid Harry is trying not to laugh. I hope I don't laugh_.

"It's not that… I mean… I didn't expect the question. I… um…" Draco licked his lips. "guys."

"Really?" Day looked up, smiling at Draco. He seemed stunned with her sudden change in mood and all a sudden the noise level of the hall went all the way up. Everyone was buzzing with the news that Draco Malfoy was also gay. Everyone around Harry and Draco settled down to have their breakfast, attempting to hide their smiles. Even Hermione had to hide behind the book that she was trying to read. Draco looked around and finally realized what happened.

He turned to Harry. "You knew, didn't you? You told her to…"

Day knew that Draco was a little embarrassed about what happened and it was her fault for playing with his emotions like that. She put her hands on his shoulders and turned him to face her. "Draco, it's not Harry. If you are going to be angry, target it at me. I just want to be sure of your preference, so that there is no confusion between us. Okay? I'm sorry." Day then looked at Draco with her puppy look, making Draco wince. Finally Draco sighed, ruffled her short hair and started to eat breakfast.

"You could have been a slytherin you know, with that neat little trick." Draco commented, taking a sip of the pumpkin juice.

Her answer almost made him choke on the juice. "Almost did." He turned to stare at her. Day looked up to find everyone staring at her. "I read up about the houses before I came. Hated snakes and green. So when that hat suggested Slytherin, I threatened to take a scissors to it and for that action, it deemed me brave enough to be a Gryffindor. So here I am." She went on eating like it was nothing.

"Don't worry, I nearly ended up over at that table as well." Harry grinned at Day, who grinned back. At that moment, their class schedules appeared in front of each student.

"See, you didn't believe me when I said that I could predict our first lesson. Double potions with the Slytherins." Ron muttered to Hermione.

Day grinned. "DADA."

Seamus pouted. "How come we don't get such good deals? You get Professor Lupin for the first lesson? When do you see Snape?"

"Tomorrow." Day tucked her schedule into her bag. Everyone sighed with envy, with the exception of Draco, of course, seeing that Draco had been Snape's favorite student for years.

At that particular moment, Pansy strolled into the Great Hall with Crabbe and Goyle. She purposely chose to walk past the Gryffindor group.

"Well, well, well. Look where Draco Malfoy is hiding. Behind the Gryffindors. How utterly disgusting." She attempted drawling her comment, however, the whininess of her voice only made her sound wimpy. Seamus, who was seated beside Day, was going to spring up to defend Draco, when Day placed her hand on Seamus's hand. Day then quickly glanced around the hall and realized that many of the students were staring at the whole scene. Even Professor Dumbledore seemed to be actively watching.

"Parkinson. Did you hear the news this morning? Draco just told the whole hall that he prefers guys because of you. It seems that you have the ability to turn guys who are in close contact with you into gays. I suggest you two to stay away from her." Day addressed the last comment to Crabbe and Goyle. The two of them, being rather stupid, shot a look at Pansy and shrunk back a step from her. Day just turned back to her breakfast, catching the wink Draco gave her. Pansy was stunned with the news, as well as the reaction from her henchmen, than her face flushed and she stormed to the Slytherin table. Her henchmen obviously thought that Day was serious and hurriedly chose seats as far away from Pansy as ever.

"Oh my, can those two get anymore dumber? My dear, thank you. We're even now." Draco smiled at Day.

"Oh, it's nothing. I'm keeping you." Day replied. At that moment the owl post came in. Hedwig flew down and landed beside Harry's plate. Harry fed him some bacon and realized that Hedwig just wanted to check on him as she had no letter tied to her claws.

"Hi Hedwig. Don't worry. I'm fine. Got here safe and sound. We're not going back again. Okay?" Hedwig hooted in agreement, spread her wings and flew off.

"Um… Day, what do you mean you are keeping me? I'm not a puppy you know." Draco frowned.

"Ask Harry. I said the same words to him two years ago. I got to go. Need to check out a book at the library before my lesson with the lovely werewolf. I hope I don't drool in class." Day winked at Harry as she got up to leave.

Draco looked at her leaving figure and turned to see Harry grinning at him. "Well, she just officially 'adopted' you in front of the whole Gryffindor. It means if any one in Gryffindor bad-mouths you, they'll get it from her. And they won't want to go against her."

"Yup. If not for her restlessness she'll be likely to be teacher's pet for every class. And the number of O.W.L.S. she got was amazing. Without studying, she came a close second with the record set by my dear Hermione. And the pranks she played. Even Peeves leaves her alone." Ron added. Peeves was a resident poltergeist of Hogwarts and was famous for destroying classrooms and loitering the hallways playing pranks on professors and students.

Draco never knew that Day Lee was so smart. After all, she was two years below his that he didn't even pay much attention to her. And she just 'adopted' him? "You Gryffindors really trust a person very easily huh?"

"It depends. Day always have the ability to see beyond a person's mask. When she said that she was 'keeping' me two years ago, all I thought was that by being near her, I was endangering her. So I pulled away. I shut her out for a week, avoided her and just plain ignored her when I saw her. Then after that week, in the common room, she came up to me and gave me a tight slap across the face. She wanted me to stop doing whatever I was doing. Her exact words were that 'she just wanted someone to listen to her ramble'. I caved in. And subconsciously she became something like a little sister to me." Harry said, getting up from his seat upon noticing that all of them had finished their breakfast. They then made their way to the dungeons for the dreaded Potions lessons. 

Both the Slytherins and Gryffindors arrived at the same time outside the classroom. Ron was leading the Gryffindors and Pansy was leading Slytherins. Both stopped at the door and glared at each other.

"So are you going to spend my lesson out here glaring at each other? Or do you all actually want to learn something that is beyond all your intelligence?" Both groups heard a sarcastic voice from the doorway of the classroom. Professor Snape was standing there glowering at the two groups of students. He then turned and strode back to the blackboard, with Pansy leading her band of Slytherins into the classroom in a hurry. Without Draco on her side, she did not want to anger Professor Snape unnecessarily. The whole group of Gryffindors also settled into their seats as they knew that Professor Snape had never favored them and they did not want to invite unwanted detentions.

"You are all going to work in pairs this year. I'll assign you partners. And no switching of partners during the whole year. Parkinson and Bulstrode. Goyle and Crabbe. Zabini and Longbottom. Brown and Patil. Potter and Malfoy. Granger and Weasley. Thomas and Finnegan. Fifteen seconds to seat yourself beside your partner. Starting now." Most of the students are already seated with their partners so there was not much movement. At exactly fifteen seconds later, Professor Snape started talking. "You will place your summer assignments on my desk on your way out of the room later. This year, we will be focusing on some medi-potions. The reason we are focusing on this is due to the fact that some of you may want to continue your magical studies as mediwizards. What we learnt this year will help you as these are the basic potions mediwizards need to know how to brew. You also may need them if you are hurt and no mediwizards are at hand. You have learnt Pepper-Up potions in your fifth year. Some of the potions that we will be looking at are the Dreamless Sleep potion, Sleeping potion, Bruise Healing Potion, Wound-cleaning Potion and so on. Since you have a professor here who is a werewolf, I decided that you need to familiarize yourself with the Wolfsbane Potion. What is the function of Wolfsbane Potion?" The whole class expected Hermione's hand to shoot up to answer the question, and even Professor Snape seemed to blink in surprise when her hand remained on the desk. The class turned to stare at her as she seemed to be waiting patiently for someone to give the answer. "Longbottom."

Neville gulped, looked at Hermione and answered in a hesitating tone. "It… allows the werewolf to… um… maintain its… humanity during its transformation?"

"Yes. The werewolf is supposed to be like a wolf during its transformation every full moon. With the Wolfsbane Potion, the werewolf would be able to recognize his surroundings and people around him and will not attempt to bite his relatives and friends. In other words, unless provoked, the werewolf will behave like a tame dog around you. What are the ingredients needed to make Wolfsbane Potion?" This time when he asked the question, he pointedly stared at Hermione. Hermione went on scribbling something on the parchment in front of her and did not lift her hand to volunteer her answer. Draco raised his hand. "Mr Malfoy?" Snape glanced at Draco.

"Armadillo bile, frog's eyes, powdered Billywig stingers, dewinged Lacewing flies and sliced leeches." Professor Snape nodded and started droning on and on about how the combination of the ingredients and the process of boiling the potion at which particular temperature and the duration made the portion the way it was. Harry could tell that Professor Snape really loved potions. He managed to spend the next one and a half hour telling them about the potion, and everyone was scribbling like mad on their parchments to catch as many things as they could of what the professor had recited. The class was strangely quiet, as every time a question was asked, Hermione never looked up from her parchment. All the Gryffindor students were frowning away at Hermione, wondering if she was feeling ill. Finally Professor Snape dismissed the class and all the students rushed to hand in their summer homework and to exit the class. No one in their right presence of mind would want to stay back after Snape's class.

Draco packed up his things slowly, as he handed his parchment to Harry to help him place it on Snape's desk. Looking around when he picked up his bag, he noticed that all the Slytherins had exited the class in a very fast manner as well. Harry was making his way back to him as Draco was holding on to his bag.

"Draco, how was last night? Did the Gryffindors give you any trouble?" Snape asked him softly, making sure that most of the students had left. Harry was standing behind Snape in a stunned manner as he had never heard Snape sound so… concerned for a student before. Draco grinned at him.

"They're okay. I actually had a good night of sleep. Some of them defended me against Parkinson at breakfast. I think they actually think that I'm … nice. Right Potter?"

"You nice? They must be mad for all I know. Come on. We still have History of Magic. Don't want to be late." Harry playfully answered and hurried Draco out of the Dungeons.

Ron and Hermione were waiting at the door, with Hermione wearing an impatient look. She hurried the three boys towards the History of Magic classroom grumbling that they were going to be late. Draco commented that he didn't understand why anyone would worry about being late for the lesson in which everyone would take a nap in. Ron then commented that Hermione actually took notes in that class for the past six years. All Draco gave as a reply was an astonished look and Hermione responded by glaring at her boyfriend.

"Herm, why didn't you put up your hand just now?" Ron hesitantly asked.

Hermione grinned at them. "Since he didn't call me for the past six years, I don't see why I should waste my energy putting my hands up and waving it in front of him. Draco gave me the idea. Did you see Snape's expression just now? I could barely keep from laughing." Draco grinned back at Hermione.

The four of them entered the classroom just as the professor of the class, a ghost called Professor Binns appeared. Harry motioned Draco to the corner furthest from the professor as he had some questions to ask him and now was as good a time as any. Once Professor Binns started lecturing, Ron laid his head down and closed his eyes, ready to take his nap before lunch. Ron was not actually supposed to be in this class, as he dropped it after his OWLS. He was just here to keep his girlfriend company while it is his free period, seeing as it is no different from him going all the way back to the dorms to take a short nap. Hermione started taking notes for the class. Dean took out his sketchbook and pencil and started sketching, and Seamus started following Ron into the dream world. Harry took out a piece of parchment and wrote something on it before passing it to Draco, who wrote a reply before passing it back, starting a 'written' conversation.

_Why was Snape so nice to you? Even though you were his favorite student._

**Why? Jealous?**

_No. Just curious._

**He's my godfather. He was afraid that I'll be black and blue under my robes from last night's stay in the lion's den.**

_Yuck. Really?_

**Why would I want to lie about that?**

_Oh. Okay._

**No one but my parents, and now you, knew about that. Snape and my parents were friends in school.**

_Same case with me. Sirius and Dad were best friends. How DID you find out who Snuffles really was anyway?_

**Parents were killed. I happened to be out visiting Snape when that bastard slaughtered my whole damn family. Snape took me back here to be protected. Lupin arrived early with Snuffles. They had to tell me as they got that dog to tag me everywhere to protect me. Was irritated by that dog at first. But got used to him. He's quite a great guy actually.**

_I know he's a great guy. He IS my godfather after all. Who do you think got me my Firebolt? *Smirk*_

**He got you that? How does an escaped convict get that much money? I can't even afford it on MY pocket money.**

_How am I to know? He's the only family I got left. I hope he doesn't get caught again._

**By the way, do you know why Voldemort wanted to do away with you? From what I heard my father say, it seemed that you were the target all these while. There must be a specific reason why he'll kill so many people to get to you.**

_There is a reason. I just wish someone would tell me. You'll think that after so many years, Dumbledore would tell me. But no. He kept saying I'm not old enough. Wonder what is 'old enough' to him. When I'm dead? *Sigh*_

**Well, I'm not much better than you. I refused to join him in his face. Then he said since I am not willing, then I should go. Father was quivering in his shoes. Took me home and packed me off to Snape Manor immediately. Said for me to stay there till he gave me permission to go home. Aurors knocked on Snape's door the next morning to announce my parents' death and all my relatives were dead too. Became so damn rich overnight. But that means that I am being cast out of Slytherin.**

_Well, I do know that knowing that YOU are not evil make me sleep better at night. I need more friends than enemies._

**Friends. Never thought that after so many years, we came back to square one huh? Weasley is not so bad if I say so myself. Sorry I insulted him all these years.**

_You should be saying that to him, not me. Why did you love to pick on him?_

**He already told me that he'll try not to beat me up this year. *grin* Maybe I should buy him and his girlfriend some presents huh? Anyway, I only insulted him because that seemed to get a reaction out of YOU. You seemed to be able to ignore any insult about yourself but get angry when I insult them. So it was fun. And I was expected to do that. After all, my father was under Voldemort.**

_But from your descriptions of your dad, at least he cares about you. I don't even remember my father._

**Cares? He doesn't know the meaning of the word. He packed me off not to protect me. He was going to disown me the next day. I could tell from the rage and disapproval on his face. He was just killed before he had the chance to change the will.**

_That's a little extreme isn't it?_

**You should thank the lords that you were not born in my family. Remind me to show you some of the scars one of these days.**

_SCARS? He beat you?_

**Beating is nothing. Let's just say that I've learned since very young that there is no limit to the amount of pain a human being can endure.**

Harry read what Draco wrote and turned to stare at him. He then noticed that Draco's face had gone emotionless. He had always thought that he himself had a childhood that was not very good compared to many people, but at least his uncle never really beat him up. All he did was to ignore and insult him. That was why when Draco insulted him, he didn't really mind, as he was used to it. But to be beaten till there were scars or even worse, and to be given that kind of treatment by your own father… Harry licked his suddenly dry lips. Draco saw his reaction and snatched the parchment back to write something.

**Don't pity me. I don't want your pity.**

_I'm not pitying you. Just that this is a bit of a shock._

**Why? You thought that I grew up in a perfect home?**

_Yes._

**All the Slytherins face the same thing at home. That's why I don't even blame them much for their behaviour now.**

_If you ever want to talk, you can talk to me. Okay?_

**Want to be a psychiatrist when you graduated?**

_No. Just want to be a friend._

***lift eyebrow***

_What?_

**Is that all?**

_What do you mean?_

**What was that thing with Day this morning?**

_What DO you mean?_

**You wanted to know, right?**

_No. Day wanted to know._

**You mean you are not at all interested to find out my sexual preference?**

_Hmm… now that we DO know, we can check out guys together._

**Really? That's your only motive?**

_I told you SHE wanted to know._

**So. Do you think Ron's cute?**

_*puke* if you like redheads. And I mean… really red. And he's so… PINK. Don't tell him I said that._

***trying to control laughter* Then who's cute? Seamus?**

_If you like the flirty and hyper type. Anyway, he's taken._

**By WHO?**

_Dean._

**You are kidding me! I thought he's straight.**

_He told me he's interested. Don't tell others, but there seemed to be a wager on who Seamus is going to be with. Most people bet on me, but Nev added on his bet on Dean._

**I know. Heard something about it before the summer. Different houses bet on different people. Hufflepuffs bet on Justin. Ravenclaws and Gryffindor bet on you. Slytherins bet on Blaise.**

_Zabini is gay too?_

**Yup.**

_Hmm… maybe I should persuade Nev to bet for us. *grin*_

**Yah. Then we'll be rich.**

_We ARE rich._

**Okay richer than rich.**

_One minute left. Nice talking to you. Best History lesson I ever had._

**Same here. Burn this?**

Harry read that last line and nodded at Draco. Draco then took the very long piece of parchment that they had used and crushed it into a ball. When Professor Binns dismissed the class, Draco took his wand, pointed it at the ball and muttered under his breath. The ball of parchment burst into fire and within three seconds, even the ashes disappeared.

"Useful little spell." Harry muttered admirably.

"Novelty of being born in that family. Need to know your spells. I'll lend you that book." Draco answered, following the group to the Great Hall for their lunch.

The whole group settled down to have their lunch. Hermione was reading a book as usual as she chewed away at her food. Draco was sitting right opposite her and was quite irritated by the fact that the book was right in front of him.

"Hermione. It's the first day. No homework yet. How can you be reading a book now?" Hermione lowered her book slightly and glanced at Draco for a second, before continuing her reading.

"It's no use. If six years of nagging from us had no effect on her, what makes you think she will stop now?" Ron answered, while busy piling food on his plate.

"Did anyone notice that they didn't choose a head girl or boy this year? No one seemed to know anything." Seamus asked.

"Most likely because Draco had to be taken out of his house, and they had to do a re-voting. You can't have a Head Boy who is not of any house, can you?" Hermione answered.

"It means no more prefect meetings. No Quidditch too. That means I got more time. Maybe I should ask Professor Snape about the extra credit assignments." Draco frowned.

"Believe me, you don't need extra credit assignments. You are already at the top of the class!" Dean exclaimed.

"But what am I to do with my time? I can only study for so many hours."

"You, can help me train. Ron, how about it? Someone who can help you think Quidditch strategies? He won't leak it to the Slytherins now. And he was a good player." Harry looked at Ron. Draco looked at Ron too.

Ron looked at the two hopeful pairs of eyes pleading with him and gave in, nodding. He never could take Harry's puppy-eyed look. And Draco's grey eyes with a pleading look were just as powerful. Draco gave Ron a quick grin and happily went on eating his lunch. Ron actually felt good, making Draco happy. It was a weird feeling that he was not used to.

After they finished lunch, Hermione dragged Ron off to the library to check out a book that Snape mentioned as a reference book and the rest of the group slowly made their way to the Transfiguration classroom, discussing Quidditch along the way.


	6. Why Me?

**Chapter 6: Why Me?**

As soon as the whole class settled themselves into their seats, they noticed a cat seated on the professor's table. Everyone stared at the cat, waiting for her to stop cleaning itself. Back in the first year, everyone ignored the cat. However seven years later, they knew better than to do that. In fact all the Gryffindor prefects attempted to discreetly warn all first years in Gryffindor to never ignore the cat in their first Transfiguration lesson, so as to avoid detentions and point deductions. That was because the cat was actually Professor McGonagall's animagus form. She had often used that form to patrol the hallways at night. The cat looked around and realised that all the students had arrived and leaped off the desk, changing to Professor McGonagall's form. She stopped in front of Draco, politely nodding to him. "I trust that you were comfortable last night in your dorm room?" She asked politely.

Draco nodded, and answered "Yes, Professor. Thank You." Upon hearing that she strode back to the blackboard to start her lesson.

"This year we are focusing on spells that can transfigure animals into other animals. Then we will progress to the spells that can allow you to transfigure other people into animals. However, these spells cannot transfigure your own self into an animal. The only one that can do that is when you train to be an animagus. We will not be teaching that in our curriculum in Hogwarts, mainly because when you have completed the training, you will have to register with the Ministry. There are institutions in which you can apply for when you graduate from here to learn that, mainly because not everyone can do it, the process being very long and hard, as well as painful in the training. It is more useful if you can handle the spells I'm going to teach you, because of the variety of choices that it allows you. Animagus transfiguration does not allow you to choose the animal. Very often, the animal chooses you, depending on the character that you have. What you learn this year will help you in that area, should you wish to further your studies in Transfiguration. Now, please pair up. There will be a group with an additional member as we have an odd number of students. Please face your partner." Professor McGonagall ended, with the students turned their chairs to face their partners. Everyone chose to stick with the potions pairs that were assigned by Snape and Neville being the odd one out decided to join Hermione and Ron, thinking that if he did something wrong, Hermione would be able to correct the mistake.

On the whole, the lesson went very well. Each pair was given a small hamster, which each partner took turns to change it into a mouse, a rabbit, a turtle and back to a hamster. The cycle went on as the requirement was that you need to change the color of the animal at each transfiguration. It amounted to quite a bit of laughter as Neville was seen chasing after a blue rabbit which hopped off after the change. Finally when the animals were changed back into the original hamsters and placed back into their cage, the class was dismissed.

The Gryffindors then traveled to the Charms classroom in which they were to have the lesson with Hufflepuffs. The first Charms lesson was based on theory and the whole class sat in the warm classroom listening to Professor Flitwick drone on and on. Harry was seated next to the window and was looking out of it, only paying half of his attention to the lecturing professor. He was quite restless as all throughout the summer, his aunt got him working in the garden and he was not used to sitting so much in one day. He missed his morning run that morning as well as he slept in. Looking at his schedule he realized that he had one and a half hour free after Charms before dinner and decided to go for a run around Hogwarts. Looking out of the window, he saw Hagrid bringing his class to a shed behind his hut to look at a certain animal. Knowing Hagrid, it must be something that was very rare. Since they took their O.W.L.s every one of them was to revise their curriculum in which they specialized in two areas of magic. Care of Magical Creatures, which Hagrid taught was taken out of the curriculum for the sixth and seventh years, for them to concentrate on other subjects. That also meant that he had less chance to talk to Hagrid, who was his first friend. From what he knew, there were only three people in the seventh year currently taking three areas of specializations, Hermione because she was the top student, Draco because he wanted to compete with Hermione, and Harry himself due to the need to be able to defend himself against Voldemort. Thus the three of them were no longer needed to take the Intermediate Herbalogy classes. In terms of workload, Hermione still had the most number of classes as she was taking Advanced Arithmancy, an elective, meaning she had an addition Intermediate Arithmancy class that she had to go. (A/N: the subjects that everyone is taking is at the end of the chapter.)

Harry then shot a glance at Draco. He knew that Draco and he were the only seventh years taking Advanced Transfiguration. (Draco's was taking Advanced DADA and Advanced Potions and Harry took Advanced DADA and Advanced Charms.) For the past year, Professor McGonagall said that she needed to get each other on par with each other's abilities before she could group the two together for combined lessons. Even though the two were still enemies then, Harry felt quite lonely turning up for lessons alone. Maybe she was afraid that she would have to spend time breaking up fights instead of teaching. And she meant whose abilities were NOT on par with whose? Harry frowned. He didn't want to lose out to Draco. Even though they were now sleeping in the same dorm, it did not mean that he was not competitive. He did care about the results he get, just that he also had other things on his mind, like Quidditch. Then he remembered that at breakfast when he compared his schedule with that of Draco's the only difference was that when he was supposed to go for Advanced Charms, Draco was to report to Snape for Advanced Potions. That meant that their Advanced Transfiguration was together. _Hmm… I wonder if we can persuade McGonagall to teach us to be an animagus since Voldemort is after us. I think not, she made it very clear in her lesson that she doesn't approve of illegal animagus. Bet the presence of Sirius around is already driving her nuts._ Harry smiled to himself.

Looking at his watch, he realized that he day-dreamed quite a large bit of the lesson away, missing the notes that he was supposed to take. Glancing at Draco who was studiously taking notes on his parchment which was full of notes, he slowly leant himself over Draco's right shoulder, placing his left hand over the back of Draco's chair, and started copying the notes that he missed. _How can he write everything so neatly when Flitwick was speaking so fast?_ Harry wondered to himself, as he copied, not noticing that Draco's body froze in the middle of note-taking.

Draco breathed in shallowly and licked his lips. His mouth had suddenly gone dry as he felt Harry's warm presence lean in close to him, nearly embracing him. He shot a glance at Harry and realized that he merely wanted to copy his notes. He then tried to pull his attention back to the professor who despite having gone on for an hour, seemed to still have relentless energy in the way he talked. Draco hurriedly scribbled the new point that was being brought up by the professor so as to not let Harry know how his presence had affected him. When Harry finished, he leant back into his own seat, catching Draco's grey eyes staring at him. He gave Draco a quick grin and turned to face the professor. Draco, upon seeing his grin, realized that Harry merely leant close to him to copy notes and had no ulterior motives, breathed in deeply before turning his eyes back to Flitwick. _That smile… and the reason why he's so attractive is that he does not know that he's attractive._ Draco sighed to himself. _How am I going to survive the rest of the year in his ROOM!_

All these were observed by Dean who was seated behind Harry. He even caught the worried look that appeared on Draco's face when Draco turned to face the front. _Way to go Harry! That was a really neat trick. Probably he didn't even know what he was doing to Draco. Wonder if it works on Seamus._ Dean shot Seamus a look. Seamus for once was paying attention to the professor and scribbling his notes on the parchment, and did not see what happened with Harry and Draco. Dean cautiously leant over and followed Harry's previous position with his chest lightly touching Seamus' right arm and Dean's left hand behind Seamus. He nearly couldn't control his elation when he felt Seamus freeze up and shoot him a glance. He copied the notes he missed when he was observing at Harry and Draco and then slowly pulled back when he finished. He nearly smiled when he saw Seamus looking at him with the deer in the headlights look in his eyes and casually gave a grin to thank him for letting him copy the notes. He then faced the front, keeping an eye on Seamus' face. Seamus looked at his parchment, swallowed, and bit his bottom lip, before glancing at Dean again. He then seemed to come to the conclusion that Dean did not mean to lean that close and looked up at the professor. However, he did not continue to take down any more notes as his mind seemed to be a mess at that moment.

Everything was being observed by Neville who was seated behind Seamus. He was trying to hide his smile behind his hand. _I can't wait to tell Ginny what happen._ He smiled to himself, just as Professor Flitwick dismissed the class and reminded them to hand in their summer assignments.

Harry went with the whole group to the dorms with only Hermione running off for her Arithmancy class. Upon reaching the dorm room, Harry dumped his bag on his bed, took a sleeveless t-shirt and a pair of shorts to change and then bent down to wear his running shoes. Draco was sitting on his bed tidying his things when he looked up just in time to see the back view of Harry straightening up dressed in a pair of shorts that showed off his muscular legs and a t-shirt that showed off his arms. Seamus sat down on Draco's bed, discreetly muttered to him "You're drooling." and grinned at his uncomfortable look. "Harry, you are not going to go running alone are you?" Seamus commented in a serious tone.

"I'm just going to run around the Quidditch pitch. Nothing is going to happen to me." Harry took his wand from the pocket of his discarded robe and wondered where to tuck it so that it would not disrupt his running. When he was running during the summer, he did not have to bring his wand around as he was prohibited from using magic in the summer.

"Quidditch Pitch? I'll sit in the stands while you run. Pass me your wand. I'll hold it for you." Seamus stretched out his hand and took the wand from Harry. He then took off his robe, showing him in a t-shirt and jeans. "It's too hot outside to wear a robe."

Draco quickly took off his robe as well, pulled a t-shirt from his closet and combed his hair. "I'll join you." All Seamus did was to wait at the door for him. All three left their room, and went down to the Gryffindor common room.

Just then the portrait swung open and Day entered with her group of Fifth Years. Some of the girls passed Harry and giggled. Day bounded up to Harry and stopped him. She then gestured for him to make a turn. Knowing that Day would not let him leave till she was satisfied, he made a turn, like showing off his clothes to Day. When he turned back to face Day, she leant close to him and whispered into his ears, "You look so HOT. Looks like Draco's going to have wet dreams tonight." She then ran laughingly towards her dorm room. Harry chuckled and turned towards the portrait, seeing from the corner of his eye that Draco was staring at him.

The three made their way to the Quidditch Pitch and Harry did some warm-up. He then did some push-ups and sit-ups before starting for his run. All through his warm-ups, both Seamus and Draco were silent, staring at him exercise. Only when he left them at the stands for his run did they relax in their seats.

"Amazing in the fact that he doesn't know how good he looks." Seamus commented, looking at Draco. All Draco did was nod as he looked at the figure running. Draco was slightly aroused by the sight of Harry doing his warm-ups. He thanked Merlin that he chose a looser pair of jeans that morning when he dressed. Then he turned back to Seamus to find him scrutinizing him.

"What?"

"I see attraction." Seamus commented, before turning to look at Harry.

"For who?" Draco tried denying it.

"Don't. He's attracted to you too. All I ask for is that you don't hurt him. He already lost too many things in life. And he isn't like me. I don't mind flings because I'm selfish. So that when I'm lonely, at that moment, I have someone with me. He once told me that he mate for life, because he doesn't want the emptiness of flings."

"Don't you want someone to be with you for life?" Draco asked.

"Who doesn't?" Seamus smiled sadly. "But… it seems that the one I really want doesn't want me. So whenever I feel cold… I start a fling."

"It's Dean isn't it?" Draco asked softly.

"Was I that obvious? I thought I hid it well. Flirt with everyone, every ten people I flirt with, I flirt once with Dean. That once was all I asked for. Sometimes I wonder why I torture myself. There are quite a few guys who don't mind having me in their bed, not that I'm boasting. But every night I go and lie in my empty bed just to hear the snores coming from the next bed. Just to be near to him. Because that seems to be all I can get. A roommate. Oh God, I'm being sappy. Again." Seamus sighed, lying back, looking up into the sky which was going to darken soon. "I think Harry knows. I never told him, but he always caught me staring at Dean. Last year was horrible. Remember Dean had a girlfriend? The two of them were always snogging in front of me. I wanted to slap that bitch. Then she cheated on him. Dean really liked her. He came to me crying. That night I had to put a silencing spell on my curtains and I cried the whole night. Why must I fall for Dean?" Seamus closed his eyes, trying to control his emotions. He was afraid that he was going to start crying. He didn't understand why he was telling all these to Draco Malfoy all a sudden. Maybe it was because that Draco, being houseless and having no family, wouldn't really tell the other Slytherins and make them tease him. Maybe it was because he was starting to trust Draco. He turned to face Draco who was staring at him. "Don't tell Harry huh?"

Draco nodded. "I have to admit, I do find myself attracted to Harry. But like him, I don't play around. The only person you could hear who was linked to me was Pansy. But that's because she was always latched to me. Not by my choice. But Harry and I… it's too fast. He's grown a lot in the last summer. He looks really good now. Yesterday morning we were still enemies. Yesterday night he accepted me as a friend because of Dumbledore. I think we should go slower. Until I realize that I really like him a lot and that it IS going to last, I think we should try our hand at friendship first." Draco sighed. "After all, I don't want to start something with him now and regret it when I realized that it was because I'm feeling lonely now. And I personally think that we can become very good friends if we want. We are quite similar you know." Draco looked out at the pitch, and spotted Harry slowing down to make his way back to them.

As Harry made his way back to the two of them, he wondered what they have been talking about. He then thought about the Dean and Seamus situation. Dean should be working faster. Seamus had been in love with him for more than a year. He was so hurt last year when Dean got himself a girlfriend. It was so obvious in that every time Dean and his girlfriend talked to each other, Seamus would latch onto Harry's arm and engage himself in everything but not to look at them. It hurt Harry to see his friend so sad. Now when Dean finally decided to notice Seamus, can't he work harder to get Seamus so that Seamus could stop thinking himself as unwanted? _I need to talk to Dean and get him to speed it up. Seamus isn't going to wait forever._

 _Then what about yourself?_ A voice inside his head asked.

 _What myself?_ Harry answered defensively.

 _You know, that attraction to a certain blond._ That voice cheekily said.

 _Don't say it like he's a silly blond. He's smart, good looking, and had a sad childhood. He had enough sadness in his life. I don't want to endanger him. No one wants a boyfriend with the lowest life-expectancy in the whole damn school. Why would he want me? And why am I arguing with myself?_ Harry sighed.

Harry reached the other two and did some short cooling-down exercises. Then he took his wand back and the three silently made their way back to his dorm room. Harry took his toiletries to take a shower. As he stepped under the hot water with his eyes closed, he couldn't help seeing the image of Draco's mercury eyes staring at him. He reached out his hand and turned the water to cold water as he finished showering using cold water.

The whole group met Hermione outside the Great Hall when they went for their dinner. Ron immediately took over her heavy bag and gave her a peck on her cheeks. They did not know that four people were sending them looks of envy as they went into the Great Hall, feeling lonely in the crowd of hundreds.

Halfway through the dinner, Professor Dumbledore stood up to make an announcement. "As you have noticed, we have yet to announce the identity of the Head Girl and Head Boy. I'm pleased to announce that Mr Terry Boot from Ravenclaw and Miss Hermione Granger from Gryffindor are the Head Boy and Girl respectively. Please give the two of them all the cooperation you can in this year." Both Terry Boot and Hermione stood up and bowed to the school. When she sat down, Ron gave Hermione a big hug.

"I knew you will get the post. Knew it six years ago when you were scolding me in Charms. Congratulations, love." Hermione beamed at her boyfriend. Everyone around was congratulating her. Hermione then quickly finished her dinner, went over to the Ravenclaw table to discuss the date for the first prefect meeting before going to the Hufflepuffs table to tell the prefects the meeting date. Terry then made his way to Blaise, the other Slytherin Seventh Year prefect and told him to pass the news to the prefects of his house. Draco shook his head.

"Ron, you do know that the prefects are going to hate the Head Boy and Girl this year. Both are SO hardworking. And most of the prefects are really lazy. I know from experience. Slytherins prefects are notorious for being unapproachable. I had a good year last year with the first years quivering whenever I walked past their group. It was so hilarious." Draco joked.

"Draco, only you would think of scaring the first years as hilarious. Imagine they come into a school that they were not familiar with, and the prefects are so scary, you are going to scar them for life." Ginny frowned back at Draco, as she was a prefect for her year too. Just then Hermione came back to her seat.

"Gin, Wednesday eight pm, prefect room. Pass the message." Ginny nodded and went to find the other prefects of the house. Hermione then turned to Draco. "You do know that I'm going to miss you arguing against me in the prefect meetings right?" Hermione smiled at Draco.

"Of course. Who else will argue against you? Harry, potatoes." Draco said, handing Harry his spoon. Harry took the potatoes for him and went on eating. Just then a black furry head pushed itself in between of Harry's and Draco's bodies. "Snuffles, didn't anyone feed you? You are so rude." Draco mock scolded Sirius whose eyes were eyeing the chicken wings on the table. Harry stretched out his hand, grabbed a chicken wing and extended it to Sirius who immediately bit into the chicken wing and sat down between the two chairs eating it. Draco just shook his head and frowned up to the teachers' table where Professor Lupin was seated eating his dinner. "The way this mongrel is eating, you would think that Lupin is starving him. He won't do that, will he?" He glared back at Sirius who had finished the chicken wing and was panting hopefully up to him. Draco took two chicken wings and threw it onto the floor again, before going back to his dinner.

"Do I hear the great Draco Malfoy being concerned for a mere dog?" Ron teased Draco. Then a growl came from the dog behind Draco, who was baring his teeth and glaring at Ron for the comment of him being a 'mere' dog.

"Down, Snuffles. Ron, after all, Snuffles did belong to me for three weeks before school started. Who did you think was my bodyguard when I was at Hogwarts?" Draco grinned back at Ron, throwing two more chicken wings behind him to Sirius. Sirius settled down to finish the chicken.

There was an empty seat beside Dean. Harry motioned Dean to pass the empty plate in that seat to him. He then piled some more chicken wings, some potatoes and pastries onto the plate and lowered it for Sirius to eat. Sirius wagged his tail furiously, barked once in gratitude and started gobbling the food on the plate.

"The rate you kids are feeding it, before long, it will be too fat to even patrol the halls." Remus had walked to their group after finishing his dinner, sitting down beside Dean. Sirius looked up at Remus, growled at him and went back to gobbling his food.

"I should think that after everything, Snuffles deserved to eat." Ron commented. "What's up?"

Remus looked at Harry. "Just dropped by to say hi. And you are feeding my ungrateful dog. Any problems with your rooms?"

"Nope. No problems. But I do have some questions to ask you. So why don't you and Snuffles follow us up later?" Harry answered. Remus nodded and turned his eyes towards Sirius, who was now licking his paws, with the empty plate and a pile of bones in front of him. Harry saw his loving look and turned to look at Draco who was also staring at the professor. He lifted his eyebrow, to which Draco shrugged his shoulders. It seemed that there may be something between Sirius and Remus that they all did not know about.

When everyone finished dinner, they all made their way up to their rooms, with Remus and Sirius following. Or rather, the whole group followed Sirius who was in front with another group of Gryffindors who was trying to pet it. Finally, reaching what they call Study area, Sirius pounced on one of the couches and changed back to human form. Those who did not get the couches just sat on the carpet around the couches, lazy to pull chairs towards the centre. All that is lacking is a fireplace for the cozy atmosphere to be complete. The night before, when everyone was unpacking, Hermione suggested that they each pick a table in the Study area as their own and the shelves above their table will be their own personal book space. This was a good idea as the sleeping areas only had closets for the clothes and no space to keep the books at all. In comparison, Hermione's, Ginny's and Draco's shelves had the most number of books, while Ron's, Seamus's and Harry's space had many Quidditch stuff. After the first day of school, Hermione's area already looked very well-used as she had woke up early in the morning to attempt some studying before breakfast. Neville's desk had a small cactus on it and was next to the window looking out to the Quidditch pitch, which was always left open for air ventilation and for the owls to reach the people in the dorm. Sirius looked around the place.

"You all had been busy huh? This place looked lived in after one day. The carpet wasn't here yesterday." Sirius commented.

"Remember the bell? Got the house elves to dig a carpet out for us. They'll give Ron anything." Hermione grinned.

"That's only because they know I appreciate the food they cook. And they loved to serve people." Ron grinned at Sirius.

"So Harry, what questions?" Remus looked at Harry, whose expression quickly turned serious.

"Why me?" Harry said.

Remus and Sirius looked at each other and sighed. They had been expecting this question. They knew that this question had been bothering Harry since a few years ago, but Dumbledore kept avoiding the issue. However, over the summer, he had finally given his consent to tell Harry why he was so important to the cause. They were just waiting for Harry to ask the question again.

Ron frowned. "Harry, what do you mean?"

"Why is Harry so important that Voldemort would kill so many people to get to him?" Draco translated for Ron.

"Because he's the Boy-who-lived. He embarrassed You-Know-who." Ron answered as if it was obvious.

"No, there must be a reason why Voldemort came after my family. He didn't want my father. He didn't even want to kill my mum. Why me?" Harry asked again, never taking his eyes off Sirius. Everyone then turned to stare at Sirius and Remus.

"Fifteen years ago, one month before Halloween, we received news from Dumbledore that the Potters may be in danger. A pregnant mother who was recently widowed by Death-eaters had been murdered in her sleep. The Dark Mark was spotted by the Aurors and when Dumbledore attempted to trace back the family tree of that family, he found that they linked back to Helga Hufflepuff. Thus the baby in that woman's womb was in actual fact the heir of Hufflepuff. Thus he deduced that the Potters may be in danger as the Heir of Slytherin may be hunting the heirs of the other founders." Sirius said

"Harry, when they did the tracing of the other founders' families, they found that the Potters actually descended directly from Godric Gryffindor. The deduction would that the Heir of Gryffindor to be James. However, you were one year old by then. When trying to find the Ravenclaw's heir, we found that we were too late. Hence the Fidelius charm was suggested for your family." Remus continued. "At first we weren't even sure if the heir connection was passed onto you or not by birth, but from what Dumbledore told me, you pulled Gryffindor's sword out of the sorting hat a few years back and in a way, that's the proof that we need that you are the Heir of Gryffindor. Hence for this year, we made extra protection around you."

Everyone then turned to look at Harry, who didn't look at all surprised with what he had just been told. "Well, I'm not THAT surprised. Dumbledore dropped clues and I did have quite a few years of time to figure it out. All I needed was confirmation. So there are two heirs left? Voldemort and myself? Is that why the world seemed to think I can get rid of him again?"

"I also don't get something. Why didn't Dumbledore just leave me be? Why would he want me be protected like his darling Gryffindor Heir? I'm nowhere as important. That bastard already killed my whole family." Draco injected.

Sirius and Remus looked at each other again. "Harry, it's true that only the Slytherin's and Gryffindor's Heir are left. However, we know something that Voldemort don't. He assumed that Parseltongue was a talent which only descendants of Salazar Slytherins have. It is not. The reason why Tom Riddle could open the Chamber of Secrets was not because he was the Heir of Slytherin. After all, Harry, you could open it. That just made Voldemort assumes that he is the Heir. But he's not. Heirs are passed down through the males of the family. And Tom got his magic powers from his mother." Remus answered.

"Then who IS the Heir of Slytherin?" Hermione asked.

Sirius smiled. "That's the other person we all are trying to protect here."

Everyone turned to stare at Draco, who looked stunned with the news. "What? Me? But… my father never said anything. How could it be me?" He started to panicked. _What am I to do?_ _Not only is You-know-who after me, I'm also the Heir of Slytherin._ Draco, who was always so cool and calm with everything that happened, seemed to be about to hyperventilate.

Harry reached out when he saw that Draco seemed to be in a panic and grasped Draco's wrist tightly. "Draco, listen to me. LISTEN. Voldemort does not know. You are not in anymore danger than you were before, yet. No death eaters will be that stupid to go to him and tell him that he's not the heir. I don't think your father knew. That's why he didn't say anything. Voldemort would never have guessed that the Malfoy family that was under his control for so long is in actual fact hiding the heir. Calm down. Take a deep breath." Harry said in a commanding voice. Draco took a deep breath and found him calming down. His mind started moving very fast, accessing the situation. Upon evaluation, he realized that Harry was correct. Nobody would be so stupid as to tell You-know-who the truth if they wanted to keep themselves alive. Voldemort, assuming that he himself was the Heir, would not attempt to order anyone to trace the Slytherin bloodlines. When he was positive that he had his emotions under control, he looked up at the rest, who were still staring at him.

Harry saw that he was back in control, so he let go of his wrist and leant back in his couch. "You really need to teach me that."

"Teach you what?" Draco asked, turning to Harry.

"Hiding your emotions. Everyone tells me that they can read me like an open book. I don't want Voldemort to read me so easily." Harry commented.

"You didn't grow up having to hide your emotions from everyone around you. This is sixteen years of practice." Draco easily answered. "Any more secrets you want to drop on us?" He asked Sirius and Remus, who shook their heads. Everyone just sat back in silence to digest what they learnt that night. Remus was leaning against the couch Sirius was sitting and Sirius was unconsciously ruffling Remus' hair. They could almost hear Remus purring if he was a cat. All the students noticed and were looking at the two of them in amusement.

"Um, Remus, Sirius, anything about you two that you want to tell us?" Harry asked. Then the two adults realized that everyone was looking at them trying not to laugh.

They looked at each other and laughed. "Well, Remus and I are together. Harry, you don't mind, do you?" Sirius looked worriedly at Harry.

Harry laughed. "Why should I mind? I'm happy for you both. So Professor, does that make you my godmother?" Harry grinned, and Remus blushed at his comment. Everyone laughed.

"Sirius, I normally go for morning jogs. Seamus says that I shouldn't go alone. And I don't want to wake them up early. Do you think you could be my bodyguard every morning?" Harry asked Sirius.

Sirius nodded, and asked, "What time, I'll meet you outside the Portrait of the Fat Lady?"

"Six Thirty." Harry replied.

Ron looked at Harry like he was mad. "You'll wake up so early for a jog?" Harry just smiled at Ron.

The rest of the time was spent chatting on other stuff, while Remus refused to tell the others what he is teaching them this year for DADA, wanting them to know only when they turn up for the class. Sirius was talking to Seamus and Dean about Quidditch and Ginny and Hermione were discussing about the issues they can bring up for the prefect meeting. The only people who were quiet were Harry and Draco, who were just sitting there thinking. They caught each other's eyes and Draco indicated that they should talk. Draco got up and went into their room, sitting on his bed. After a minute, Harry walked in, and came to a stop and leant on the post of Dean's bed, facing Draco.

***

Their Subject Combinations

Harry: Advanced DADA, Advanced Charms, Advanced Transfiguration, Intermediate Potions, Intermediate History of Magic

Draco: Advanced DADA, Advanced Potions, Advanced Transfiguration, Intermediate Charms, Intermediate History of Magic

Ron: Advanced DADA, Advanced Charms, Intermediate Transfiguration, Intermediate Potions, Intermediate Herbology

Hermione: Advanced DADA, Advanced Charms, Advanced Arithmancy, Intermediate Potions, Intermediate History of Magic, Intermediate Transfiguration

Dean: Advanced DADA, Advanced Charms, Intermediate Transfiguration, Intermediate History of Magic, Intermediate Herbology

Seamus: Advanced DADA, Advanced Charms, Intermediate Transfiguration, Intermediate History of Magic, Intermediate Herbology

Neville: Advanced Herbology, Advanced History of Magic, Intermediate Transfiguration, Intermediate DADA, Intermediate Charms


	7. Beginning of Relationships

**Chapter 7: Beginning of Relationships**

Both stared at each other till Draco motioned for Harry to sit on his bed. When Harry settled himself on Draco's bed, Draco pulled the curtains of the bed closed and cast a silencing spell.

"You do know that they will be misunderstanding what we are doing in here." Harry smiled.

"What ARE we doing in here?"

"I don't know. You were the one who wanted me to come in here. To talk, I presume." Harry looked at Draco, amused. Draco laid down on the inner side of the bed, trying to make himself comfortable without kicking Harry. Harry, thinking only of Draco's comfort, decided to lean on the bed on his elbows alongside Draco on the outer edge of the bed. When he looked up, he realized that his face was just inches beside Draco's face. Draco was very amused by the fact that Harry blushed upon realizing what he unwittingly did.

"Why don't you lie back and we'll just talk? Our heir status means that we need to work together in the future." Draco commented, moving a little as Harry shifted to lie on his back.

"Wow, you did this?" Draco had the habit of enchanting the canopy of his bed at the beginning of every school year to show the outside at different times of the day. In the morning, it would show an outside scene of sunrise. In the evening, it would show the sunset. At the current moment, as Harry looked up with an entranced expression, the canopy was showing the night sky with all the stars and the moon. It was like lying outdoors.

"Yeah, it helps me relax. At night when I can't sleep, I'll just stare up at it and look at the stars. It's quite peaceful." Draco whispered.

Harry nodded. "It is. Why are we whispering? Don't we have a silencing spell up?"

Draco grinned, still looking at the stars. "Yes, but it's cute."

Harry laughed. "But we need to discuss stuff. It's very tiring to discuss in a whisper." He said in his normal voice. "You know, I think we need to be kept informed of things that happen. Do you know about the Order?" He asked. The Order that he was referring to was the Order of the Phoenix, a group of people who were fighting against Vorldemort. He had been told about their existence since fifth year but wasn't asked to join yet, as he was still a student of the school.

Draco nodded. "Dumbledore told me about it. Snape's a member. Sirius and Remus are too. What about it?"

"Dumbledore says that they don't want to involve students in the Order yet. I don't think it's a good idea. Students get information from their parents. Students share that information. News spreads. If we can determine who is trustworthy in the different houses and get them into the Order, it would be more efficient."

"And also that it shouldn't be just because they are Gryffindors, they are okay or just because they are Slytherins, they are not okay. Get what I mean? House prejudice should not be taken into account here."

Harry nodded. "Who do you know in Slytherin is definitely not wanting to serve Voldie?"

"You will realize that Snape is actually a very good judge of character. All the prefects who were chosen are people who don't want to be Death eaters. His reasoning is that in times of the war, we must have at least the prefects to keep the house safe and going, and not apparating to Voldie whenever their Dark Marks burns. Hey, I said Voldie! That name is so much easier to say." Draco grinned. Harry grinned as well. "I mean, no matter when the war starts, there will be younger students in the house. Those who had not been involved by their parents yet. These kids need the prefects around to keep them calm and safe."

"You know, I was wondering, why were Crabbe and Goyle sorted into Slytherin? They seemed to fit right in with the Hufflepuffs. Slytherins are supposed to be cunning." Draco snorted to Harry's comment.

"Let's put it this way. Their fathers tagged behind my father when they were at school. Their fathers were just as horrible as them. My father told their fathers on the way to Hogwarts in their first year to keep thinking in their head how they love to be in Slytherin. It obviously worked. Their sons told me that their father told them to do the exact same thing. They did it, so… there they are. Seems that the sorting hat decided that they were so pathetic, it is pitiful to send them elsewhere. Told that two fools that as well, and they actually used it to boast to me, thinking that it was praise."

Draco stopped talking, and the two continue to stare up in comfortable silence.

Harry spoke up. "There is nothing we can do till we really know what THEY are doing. And we don't really have many spies with Voldie because it's not safe for them. And everything did seem quiet. Voldie and the Death Eaters didn't even seem that stupid that they attack Hogwarts. What can we really do now?"

"There is one thing we can do. Train ourselves up. In DADA, transfiguration and everything we can. We need to know as many hexes as possible. Learn to defend ourselves." Draco answered, turning his head to his left to look at Harry. Then he suddenly laughed, remembering something that Harry said a moment ago. Harry turned to face Draco, in confusion. "Voldie and the Death Eaters. Sounds like a band." Harry too joined in his laughter, still staring at Draco's face.

Draco finally realized that Harry was staring at him. He then stared back at Harry, returning his stare.

Harry wished that he could just lay there staring into Draco's grey eyes forever and be able to forget about everything out there. He wished that he could just forget about the evil overlord who wanted to kill him for the past fifteen or so years, just because he was born into that family. He wished that he was a muggle. But if he was a muggle he would not have the chance to meet Draco, fight with him for six years and become his friend. And be attracted to him when both are living in close quarters. _Is that a good or bad thing?_ All Harry knew was that things had been moving too fast since he woke up the day before. Harry turned his head up to stare up at the starlit canopy and sighed, closing his eyes. He was almost sure that Draco could read his every thought in his eyes when they were staring at each other just now. Then he felt a pressure on his chest when he felt Draco shift beside him. Opening his eyes and looking down, he saw that Draco had shifted his head to lie on his chest instead of the pillow. He didn't know what to do except bring his right hand up and placing in it lightly on Draco's neck, playing with Draco's hair. Strangely he was comfortable in this position.

Draco breathed in deeply as he seemingly absorbed Harry's presence. After learning about his true heritage, all he wanted was a little bit of comfort. And Harry seemed to be a suitable choice because both seemed to be in the same predicament. And the added fact that Draco was deeply attracted to Harry. He then realized that the attraction did not start the day before. The attraction started way back before the first year when he met Harry in the robe shop. He wanted to attract the attention of Harry, but Harry seemed unmoved then. The only one whom Harry seemed so attached to back then was Hagrid, which was the reason why Draco treated Hagrid so horribly in all the years he was attending the classes Hagrid taught. All these past six years was Draco searching for attention from Harry. And he was now lying on Harry's chest. _I feel like purring,_ he smiled. _Now I know how the werewolf felt just now._

"Draco, what's happening?" Harry whispered.

"I don't know." Draco answered, with his eyes closed.

"Everything's happening so fast. We were enemies. We became friends. I… I think I like you." Harry blurted out.

Draco lifted his head to stare at Harry's emerald eyes. He then shifted till he was above Harry, supporting his own body with his elbows. "I like you too. But it is happening too fast. Want to slow it down? Because I don't play around. I don't want to just have sex. I rather there are feelings between us before we do anything. Is that okay?"

Harry nodded, relieved. "I think I better tell you this first. I don't have… much experience. Um… actually… none at all." Harry blushed.

Draco licked his lips slowly, catching Harry staring at them. "Never? All the more to slow down. Kissed before?" Harry shook his head. Draco breathed in deeply. The fact that Harry was … SO inexperienced was so tempting. "Want to try a kiss first?" Draco whispered in a husky voice. _I haven't even kissed him yet and I'm already aroused. Control._

Harry blushed even redder and gave a slight nod. Draco slowly bent his head down and touched his lips to Harry's. It started out as a chaste kiss but that only lasted for three seconds. Harry caught Draco's lower lip and started nibbling. Draco thus tried deepening his kiss, by touching his tongue to Harry's upper lip and the next moment, Harry let go of Draco's lower lip as Draco stuck his tongue into Harry's mouth. Harry had never felt like that before and even though he was lying on the bed, he had a falling sensation and he brought one hand to Draco's hips and the other hand went behind Draco's neck. When both finally came up for air, Draco saw that Harry's eyes were dilated, his face flushed and his lips slightly swollen. Draco knew that he needed to be rational if they wanted to go slow. Draco got up and sat down, with his back against the wall, breathing like he had run a marathon. He looked at Harry, who was smiling, before Draco lifted Harry's right hand up to his mouth and gave a soft kiss on his knuckles.

"And, my dear Harry, that's all we are doing today." Draco said in his husky voice, while staring at Harry's eyes.

Harry happily stared up at the canopy of stars again, trying to get his breath back and to cool his arousal down. _Wow, he really knows how to kiss. My first kiss! If anyone told me six years ago that I'll lose my first kiss to Draco Malfoy, I would think that person is mad. And he's slowing down things so as not to hurry me._ Harry grinned; his whole body was filled with elation for finding such a wonderful person.

They kept their hands linked as Harry looked up at the stars, and Draco looked at Harry. However the moment was disturbed by Seamus who flung open their curtains. At that moment, their hands let go and Seamus exclaimed, "What were you two doing in there? Nothing naughty I hope."

Harry looked at Draco, who shook his head slightly. "Seam, nothing, we are just discussing about Voldemort and staring at this." He pointed up at the canopy. Seamus looked up and gasped.

"Wow, Draco! This is like outside, if you bring a lover to make love in this bed, it would look like you are making love outdoors! Can I borrow your bed some time?" Seamus then sat down at the end of the bed, looking up at the canopy. "By the way, I'm thinking of starting a fling. Who should I target this time? Which house? The only good looking one left in Slytherin is Zabini, seeing that Draco is here. Hmm…"

By then all the guys were in the room. Ron just sat down on his bed as it was not the first time Seamus rambled off such questions. But Seamus was the only guy who did not notice that every other guy in the room shot a glare at Dean, whose face seemed to pale when Seamus asked the question. He bit his lip when he saw the frown on both Harry's and Draco's face. Even Neville was frowning at him.

"Hey, Seamus. I need to tell you something. Come here, will you?" Dean finally said to Seamus. There was a collective breath of relief from the three boys that Dean finally decided to do SOMETHING. Seamus got up from Draco's bed, walked to his own bed and sat down. Dean also got on Seamus' bed and closed the curtains, casting a silencing spell.

"What's so secretive?" Seamus asked, grinning to hide the fact that being in enclosed space with Dean alone was affecting him.

Dean breathed in deeply, wondering how to tell Seamus that he is in love with him. He decided to try the same method he used with Harry on the Hogwarts Express. "Seam, during the summer, I kept having dreams. Dreams about a certain someone." Dean said, refusing to look at Seamus.

"Woo… so you like someone new huh? Who is she?" Seamus tried to make it seemed that he was happy for Dean, but deep down inside, his heart was breaking. _AGAIN. No sleep for me tonight again._

"It's a he." Dean said, finally bringing his eyes to look at Seamus.

Seamus' jaw dropped, as his mind scrambled to process this new piece of information. Then he remembered that on the Hogwarts Express, Dean left with Harry for a 'walk'. _It can't be Harry, could it?_ He thought to himself, as he tried to keep his emotions in control but failing. _If it was some girl, I can't say anything. But now that it's Harry, then how on earth am I supposed to compete? I'm just Seamus, the annoying one who annoys the hell out of everyone. He's smart, good-looking and famous._

Dean was wondering what Seamus was thinking when he didn't say anything. He wondered if Seamus was too shocked as he seemed to have difficulty breathing and his eyes turned misty. "Seamus?"

Seamus blurted out, "It's Harry isn't it? Of course it's Harry. You went with him on a walk on the Express. He's so smart and gorgeous. And there I was trying to pair Harry up with Draco… you must have been laughing at me behind my back, isn't it? Poor Seamus, not knowing that…" Seamus couldn't say anything more, as his tears were threatening to fall from his eyes. Dean's eyes widened, as he realized that Seamus thought that he liked Harry. Looking at Seamus who was almost going to start sobbing, he realized how much Seamus really liked him. It was humbling, and at that moment, he did the only thing he could think of and the only thing he wanted to do for the whole day. He leant over Seamus, grabbed hold of Seamus' hands, pinned Seamus to the bed and kissed him, put all his emotions into the kiss.

Seamus was in shock for the first five seconds, with his eyes open, staring up at Dean. Then his eyes slowly slipped closed as he melted into the kiss. Dean's hands slowly let go of Seamus' hands and reached up to cradle Seamus' face. Seamus' hands moved to Dean's waist to hold him there. Dean then slowly brought his lower body to rest on Seamus' body and rubbed his body against Seamus. All he heard was a moan from Seamus, as he brought his mouth away from Seamus' mouth and he softly kissed Seamus' forehead, both his closed eyes, his nose and headed for Seamus' earlobe. He nibbled on it before whispering, "I dreamt about YOU. EVERY damn night for the WHOLE bloody summer." He then pulled back to look at Seamus' face.

Seamus felt like he was in heaven. He had been in love with Dean for almost two years. It was like a dream come true for him. He could feel his eyes go wet again, as he blinked to get rid of the tears. _Dean just kissed me! He wants me! Why should I be crying? I should be laughing!_ So he smiled up at Dean and said softly, "I love you Dean."

Dean gave him a chaste kiss. "I know. I love you too." He said, seeing Seamus beam up at him. Seamus reached up to bring Dean's head down and he kissed Dean, moving his tongue into his mouth and trying to taste every corner of Dean's mouth. He pushed Dean onto his back, with their mouths still attached to each other, as Seamus's fingers started pulling Dean's robes up. They let go of each other's mouths as Dean flunked off his robe and Seamus took off his own t-shirt. Seamus then attacked Dean's neck as his fingers hurriedly unbuttoned Dean's shirt. As his mouth and tongue was worshipping Dean's chest, his fingers slipped down to Dean's jeans and nimble fingers unbuttoned and unzipped it. The next thing Dean knew, he was naked except for his boxers. Looking down, he saw that Seamus was still half-dressed, and he was about to voice his objections when Seamus' tongue started tracing circles around his right nipple, with his hands tracing similar circles around his other nipple. Dean swiftly forgot what he wanted to say and arched his chest up towards Seamus. Seamus looked up at Dean, locked eyes with the person under him and took the nipple into his mouth sucking it. Dean nearly leapt off his back at the sensation. At the same time Seamus was pinching Dean's other nipple, still looking up at Dean, whose eyes had closed to enjoy the sensation. Seamus then slipped the nipple out of his mouth as his tongue and mouth continued to worship Dean downwards. He delicately licked Dean's navel, and finally used his hands to take off Dean's boxers. Looking up at Dean, he caught his lover looking at him and maintaining that eye contact, he licked his lips slowly. Dean whimpered. Without warning, Seamus took Dean's erection into his mouth and sucked hard.

"Oh SHIT… Seam…." Dean reached his hand down to touch Seamus' hair, trying to urge him to take more of himself into his mouth. Seamus' mouth was warm and moist and his tongue was stimulating the underside of his cock. "Seam… can't hold back…" Seamus seemed to suck harder upon hearing that and Dean felt a finger thrusting slightly into the entrance of his body, the sensation being so surprising and with the three months worth of wet dreams urging him on, his body exploded into orgasmic bliss.

A few minutes later, he felt Seamus settle his body onto his as he opened his eyes to look up at his Irish lover. "You okay? I think you passed out for a second or so. I wasn't that good, was I?" Seamus smiled tenderly at Dean, before he pressed his nose into the wonderful spot of flesh just below Dean's ear and hummed contentedly.

"Give me a while and I repay the favor." Dean lazily whispered, dropping a kiss on Seamus' shoulder. He didn't want to move at that moment as Seamus felt so right in his arms. Seamus shook his head. "Why ever not?"

"Came in my pants. Just want to lie here, in your arms." Seamus said, shifting himself so that Dean was embracing his currently naked self better. Dean pulled the bracket up to cover the both of them. "Stay with me tonight?" Seamus asked. Dean nodded, kissing Seamus on his forehead.

"Seam? What's going to happen tomorrow?" Dean asked, tilting his head so that it rested on Seamus' head.

"I don't know. Depends on what you want? You want me to stop flirting with people?" Seamus smiled into Dean's neck.

Dean thought about it and shook his head. "Flirting with people is part of what I adore so much about you. And it IS part of you. Just like you never stop talking. I don't really mind the flirting, so long as at the end of the flirting, you come back to me." Dean answered, tightening the embrace.

Seamus pushed himself up to look into Dean's eyes. "When I finally got you after two years? Always. I'll always come back to you." He kissed Dean on the lips lightly before leaning back into his previous position, closing his eyes with a sigh.

"Why did you not mention it to me for so long? Oh God. And last year I…" Dean sighed as he remembered the previous year's events. He must have hurt Seamus so much.

"It's not important. What's more important is that you are here with me NOW and I'm never going to let you go. I'm going to parade you in front of the whole school tomorrow to tell them that Seamus Finnegan is not going to fool around anymore. And they can settle that stupid wager I heard going around regarding my love life that they think I don't know about. I love you Dean." Seamus started to drift off to sleep.

Dean smiled. "Love you too." He replied as he also closed his eyes.


	8. Another Normal School Day

**Chapter 8: Another Normal School Day**

Harry was woken up by a buzzing sound. He sleepily reached his hand towards his pillow to grasp his wand, muttering 'silencio' as the buzzing stopped. He sat up in bed and rubbed his eyes, pushing his bed curtains aside and snatching his glasses up from the bedside drawers. Putting on his glasses, he looked around the room noticing from the snores around him that all his roommates were still asleep. Till a buzzing from Draco's bed and a whispered 'silencio' indicated that Draco had also chosen to get up at that ungodly hour. Harry hurried to wash up as he only had fifteen minutes before meeting Sirius for his run, he gathered his clothing and went towards the bathroom, seeing out of the corner of his eyes that Dean's bed was empty.

In the bathroom, he brushed his teeth and washed his face with cold water so as to wake himself up. He wouldn't want to trip over his own feet when running just because he was too sleepy. Suddenly a pair of arms encircled his waist from behind and a hoarse 'Good morning' was spoken to the back of his neck. Harry grinned, recognizing who it was and said a 'Good morning' to Draco who he saw from the mirror was snuggling into his back like a cat.

"Dray, my run, remember?" Harry patted one of the hands still wrapped around his waist. He needed to hurry in his changing of clothes if he was going to be on time. Draco whimpered, finally loosening his arms and took over Harry's position as Harry made his way to one of the cubicles to change. He was brushing his teeth when he suddenly recalled what Harry called him a minute ago. He rinsed his mouth just as Harry came out of the cubicle.

"Harry, what did you call me just now?" He looked at Harry using the mirror.

"Dray. I decided last night that 'Draco' is too formal. It is less formal to moan out 'Dray' when we are making love. Isn't it?" Harry grinned, when Draco lifted his eyebrow.

"Harry, are you trying to get me worked up here?" Draco smirked at Harry.

Harry stood behind Draco, looked at Draco in the mirror as he slowly bent to drop a kiss at the back of his neck. "Hmm… is it working? Anyway, see you later." He said, slipping out of the restroom. Draco shook his head as he chuckled, making his way to the shower cubicles, to take a cold shower.

Harry collected his wand from his bed and went into the Study area. Stopping at the panel, he stared at the movement chart that Hermione had put up on the wall beside the panel the first night they had moved in. Her reasoning was that it would be known to all where everyone was if they ever needed to know where to find someone. She also taped a copy of everyone's class schedules on the panel. All everyone needed to do before exiting was to run their thumb over a box at the top of the movement chart, thinking about what they were going to be doing, and the chart was enchanted to recognize their thumbprint, recording the activity and the time. Harry ran his thumb lightly over the chart, seeing the word 'run' magically appearing in the column labeled under his name, with the time stating 6.28am. Seeing the time, Harry realized that he had two minutes to reach downstairs. He pressed a button indicating that he wanted to open the panel, waved at Marcus who was barely awake, and raced down to the Gryffindor common room. He then opened the portrait and saw Sirius sitting outside, wagging his tail in greeting. He motioned Sirius to follow him and man and dog made their way to the Quidditch pitch.

"Sirius, any idea what I'm going to do with my wand? I don't have any place to tuck it in." Harry said to the dog. The dog seemed to look around and then transformed back to his human form in mid-stride.

"I can look after it for you. I'll be sitting in the stands. Just leave it there and I'll guard it." Sirius said before changing back to the black dog.

At the stands, with the dog guarding his wand, he started warming up. However, he thought that since Sirius was there, and even though he couldn't communicate as a dog, then Harry could just talk and ramble.

"Guess what happened last night. You know Dean and Seamus? Seamus was in love with Dean for ages, but Dean finally noticed recently. Yesterday Seamus was talking about fooling around again, and the next moment, Dean's face went pale and everyone in the room was frowning at Dean. He then called Seamus over and put a silencing spell around their bed. This morning when I woke up, Dean wasn't in his bed. Guess that couple is finally getting settled." Harry looked up at Sirius and saw the dog looking like he was grinning. Harry debated telling Sirius about Draco and him. He then decided that his godfather already missed so many events in his life, he would be the first to know about Draco. "Oh, and Sirius. I lost my first kiss last night." He grinned when he saw the ears of the black dog suddenly perked up and its eyes grew big. The next moment, Sirius was back in his human form, settling down comfortably, grinning.

"Now, this I got to hear. Last night. You left us to go to your room with Draco. I assumed something happened?" Sirius commented, laughing when Harry blushed.

Harry nodded. "We started out planning our so called next step regarding Voldie. Then… I blurted out that I like him. Both of us agreed to take things slowly. We don't want to rush. And… well… we kissed. And it was perfect." Harry was relieved that Sirius didn't seem to disapprove of the relationship.

"Hmm… Good that you two are no longer quarrelling. During the summer when I was tagging around him, he was quite nice to me, totally different from Lucius. He told me a bit about his childhood, and I have to admit, it was ugly. He said that his father kicked him out of his house, telling him to go find Snape because besides Snape, Draco had no one left. Lucius was going to disown him but Voldie struck. If he had that kind of family background, he still managed to differentiate right and wrong, then he can't be that bad huh?" Sirius smiled encouragingly at Harry, before popping back into his animagus form. Harry nodded and started his run, leaving Sirius who laid his head down on his front paws. He was glad that Harry had chosen him to be the first person to tell.

Harry soon finished his run and rushed up with Sirius to take a quick shower. Going into the bathroom, he realized that Dean and Seamus were sharing a shower cubicle, due to the groans and moans he heard. He quickly cast a silencing spell on that cubicle, showered, and before he left the bathroom, he discreetly removed the silencing spell. He breathed in relief when he removed it that the groans and moans had stopped.

Using a drying spell on his hair, he went back to his bed to comb his hair and to put on his robe. Then he rushed out to the Study area, passing Dean and Seamus who just came out from the bathrooms.

"Morning, all." He greeted everyone as he looked at his schedule to pack his bag. "Double DADA… free period… lunch… advanced charms…" he muttered as he placed the books he needed into his bag.

"Had a good run?" Draco leant his back against his own table, which happened to be beside Harry's table.

Harry flicked a glance up at Draco's grey eyes, grinned and nodded. "Just now I was showering, it was really noisy, Seam… remember… silencing charm next time." Seamus and Dean just walked into the Study area and heard Harry's comment. Both of them blushed as everyone laughed at their expense.

"You, my dear, is just jealous. Wait till you get someone of your own." Seamus said playfully as he also started tidying his bag. He never caught the grin Harry threw at Draco and the wink Draco gave to Harry.

"I was thinking about something. You guys told me that Day is a fifth year. And her O.W.L.s are lovely. Something is not right. People only take their O.W.L.s at the END of fifth year." Draco asked.

Hermione smiled. "Normal people only take them at the end of fifth year. But remember that last year was the first year in which they implemented Mock O.W.L.s for the fourth years. Fourth Years who would like to try the fifth year exams together with the fifth years in order to gauge their own standards are allowed to take the exams. Day took it for fun. They were so surprised that Day could do so well that they asked Day whether she wanted to leave the results of the Mock as that of the real thing."

"And Day, being Day, not wanting to prepare for the exams one more time, of course agreed. So while the fifth year people are cramming for their exams next May, she'll be happy as a lark, doing nothing." Harry finished.

Draco's eyebrows went up. "This is even more impressive than before. And it's quite hard for someone to impress ME."

The whole group made their way out, all of them stopping to run their thumbs on the movement chart. The panel then closed behind them, with the movement chart showing 'breakfast and class' under everyone's columns.

***

All the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws settled into their DADA class with excitement. Past experience told them that Professor Lupin's class was always interesting. Professor Lupin strode in from his breakfast and stood in front of everyone.

"Lovely breakfast, wasn't it?" He commented, patting his stomach. Everyone smiled, while Hermione frowned. "Hmm… Seventh year Gryffindors and Ravenclaws. I took you lot a few years back right? As I start out for every year, I need to warn you that as a professor here, I'm not here to dictate. I know things that you don't know, due to my experiences, but you may know things I don't know, because no professors know everything. Facing a seventh year class means that I have this year as a last chance to educate you in terms of certain things that you may face when step out of Hogwarts. And looking at the curriculum that you had handled in the past six years, especially due to the constant changing of professors, you are not THAT prepared for the outside world. Some of you may make use of DADA in your future careers, as Aurors, or even part of the Ministry. For people who don't intend to use this aspect of magic, it will be useful to at least know how to handle the magical dark creatures out there, for your safety. However, in view of the fact that Voldemort had returned, I think that the only thing anyone needs to do is to think of one thing. The choice. Don't think just because you are still a student, you can push the choice of joining what we call the Dark or the Light till your graduation. As young Mr Malfoy had shown us over the summer that the Dark had started to recruit. Likely from people around you. People who is of the same age as you. People who could even be sleeping in the same dorm room as you. So one thing you need to decide is that would you want to follow the Dark or the Light? And if you want to follow the Light, what can you do to ensure your own safety above all else? Throughout the year, you will realize that DADA is no longer just learning about magical creatures or the unforgivable curses. The professors will be trying to link all seven years of your education in all classes. We may have what we call as joint classes, where you may incorporate your Charms or even Transfiguration education into your DADA classes or assignments. We will be having many discussions to train you to be able to think for yourself. Understand?" He looked around and caught some of the students nodding.

"Okay. Defense against Dark Arts. I think you all went through quite a bit of Dart Arts stuff. We are going to have a short discussion. You have a point, you speak up. So, what defines Dark Arts?"

"Intention to harm" Hermione answered.

"Intention to control" Terry then answered.

"Power" Draco finally muttered.

Professor Lupin turned to Draco, and asked "Do you care to elaborate?"

"All these intention to harm, intention to control, all it actually means is to have the ability to do something to others. When you control a certain person's actions, that person lose power to you. The Imperius curse allows you to have the power over a person's actions. The Cruciatus Curse allows you to have power over a person's pain. The Killing Curse allows you power over a person's lifespan. They say that to be immortal means that you have power over nature. The power over something is what defines the dark magic and the dark creatures." Draco explained.

Harry spoke up. "And magic itself is light. But the textbook will say that the true intention of the caster of that spell is what actually denotes it light or dark. Due to that, it is actually very difficult to justify. Killing a person to save a town. Is that spell considered dark or light? I cast a spell to trip a friend. Dark or Light?"

Everyone was thinking about the issue that had been raised. Professor Lupin spoke up. "Yes, a very thin line was drawn between the dark and light magic. And as you all know, human beings have the tendency to move the line when it suits them. Which is why all of you have to have the ability to examine your own actions. Any other points to bring up?"

"The lure of power. The use of dark spells keep giving the power to the caster. It gets addictive." Neville said. Professor Lupin nodded.

"That's the reason behind why Slytherin House had the tendency to turn bad. Not all of the people, but students who grew up in the environments where they are in constant contact with the power lure. After a while, they lose their sensitivity to their surroundings. That's when the dark lord comes around with all the so-called benefits and tries to convince you that a tattoo on your arm and death-eater robes is fashionable." Draco said, in a dry tone. He then noticed that the whole class was staring at him.

"This is interesting. Even the Slytherin class that I had yesterday didn't come up with this point. Many of us put down Slytherins because of house rivalry. I'm a Gryffindor. Somehow when I was sorted into the house, I just hated everything to do with snakes, green and silver, you know… However, years after I graduated, I sat down one day, and wondered, what made me not like that house? Every student who was born in within the wizarding world tends to link Slytherins with dark arts. For the Muggle-borns, the first thing they heard was, 'hope you don't get sorted into Slytherin'. All of you, with the exception of Mr Malfoy were never in Slytherin. What made you not like them?" Professor Lupin asked.

"Their arrogance." Ron answered.

"Their sneakiness." Hermione added.

"You mean me." Draco smirked. Everyone in the class chuckled. "Anyone want to hear sob stories? Here goes nothing. Very little Muggle-borns were sorted into Slytherin. It could be because they were thankful of their newly gained magic that they aren't that ambitious. Most of us there are pure blood witches and wizards. From the time that we were able to understand our surroundings till we were ten, it was drilled into our heads that we were superior and we were taught the basic hexes, for self protection. I guess it can be a brainwashing procedure. Then we come here, where everyone accuses us to be arrogant, sneaky and evil, we will have the tendency to be just that, for the sake of reputation. Our family cares about that. Above everything. The pureblood families are just like the aristocratic families back in the Victorian times. We do things for show." Draco explained.

Everyone sat back thinking about what Draco said. Then Hermione put up her hand, frowning.

"Yes, Ms Granger?"

"Will this be in our N.E.W.T.s?" Hermione asked. Everyone was trying to control their laughter, but a few sniggers escaped from some of the students.

"Um, no. At least, I don't think so. The questions haven't really been set yet. What we are doing this year in Intermediate DADA is to train you to think critically so that you are able to differentiate between right and wrong after you graduate, instead of just blind following."

The rest of the DADA lesson was more discussion on the Dark Arts, and they even evaluated the different reasons that might push Gryffindors, Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs towards using Dark Arts. No homework was given when Professor Lupin dismissed the class.

The next period was Herbalogy. Of the whole group, only Harry, Draco and Hermione had a free period, as the rest headed towards the greenhouses. The three of them who were free made their way to the library, with Harry whining all the way.

"Why do we have to go to the library? Second day of school." Harry said, with Hermione pulling his hand and Draco pushing him from the back.

"I told you, I need to research on my Arithmancy. And any books on the topic that we discussed in DADA just now. Professor Lupin is sure to assign us an essay at the end of the week. Might as well be prepared for it." Hermione answered.

"And remember we said that we are going to learn to defend ourselves? We need to get a spell book and learn to not just use the spells that school teaches us so as not to be predictable. Get it? That's why you are here." Draco pacified the pouting Harry, as they stepped into the library.

They all placed their bags at a corner table, and both Hermione and Draco pushed Harry into a seat and point a finger at him, warning him to stay in that seat while they went and get their books. When they were gone, Harry looked around. Since it was the second day of school and that most of the school was in classes, the three of them were the only people in the library, with the exception of the librarian, Madam Pince. The Hogwarts library surprisingly was very well-ventilated, with many windows opened to allow light and wind to come in. Harry stood up and walked to one of the windows and gazed out. From where he was standing, he could see Professor Hooch teaching a class of first years the right ways of handling a broom. He recalled the first time he was on a broom, up in the sky. Then he recalled the incident that caused him to get on the broom without permission, an incident that involved one Draco Malfoy.

"What are you looking at?" Draco asked. He came back to the table with the books he needed, but when he saw the seat without Harry, he thought that Harry had left. Then he realized that Harry's bag was still on the table and when he looked around, he saw Harry standing at the window, looking out.

"I never did thank you." Harry answered, continuing to look at the first year class, in which some of the broomsticks refused to answer to the 'up' command of certain students.

"For?" Draco asked, also sporting the class that Harry was looking at.

"If you didn't throw that remembrall back in the first year, then I wouldn't be playing seeker now." Harry smiled at Draco. "Got the book?"

Draco nodded. "Two of them. Defense spells. Want to go back to the dorm to read?" Draco looked back at Harry hopefully.

Harry looked at him, smiling. "Read huh?" He said, as he turned to go back to get his bag. Draco checked both books out and the two of them left the library after telling Hermione that they are going back to the dorm. Once they were in their own room, Draco brought the two books to Harry's bed and sat himself on the bed.

"My bed today huh?" Harry asked, amused as he also sat down on his bed. The next moment, Draco pushed him down onto his back, rearranging him and then placed the book on Harry's chest and balanced himself on his elbows beside him. He then flipped the book open and started reading, ignoring the astonished look that Harry had on his face with the prospect of finding himself being the table. Harry sighed and settled down, letting Draco read on him, while he enjoyed the view of staring at Draco's face.

This went on for fifteen minutes till Draco suddenly frowned and snapped the book shut, throwing it aside. Harry lifted his eyebrows questioningly. Draco placed his palms faced down on top of each other on Harry's chest and placed his chin on top of them staring to Harry's face. "You were distracting me."

"But I didn't do anything. I was just staring at you." Harry frowned.

Draco smiled. "Precisely." He could feel Harry's heartbeat under where he placed his palms. He stared up at Harry, examining the features of Harry's face. The peace and contentment he felt just touching Harry, just looking at him and having Harry look back was overwhelming. He had the sudden inclination to find a hole anywhere on Earth just to hide Harry away so as to protect him against danger. _Maybe I'm falling for him. Or, I could have already fallen._ Draco sighed with resignation.

"I told Sirius about us." Harry softly said, bringing his hand up to touch Draco's cheek. Draco leant his face into the palm's caress.

"And?"

"He seems to approve." Harry smiled.

"As if the 'US' will not continue if he disapprove." Draco grinned.

"So sure of yourself huh?" Harry brought his hand to the back of Draco's neck to bring him closer.

"Of course." Draco murmured as he brought his lips to touch Harry's lips.

***

The two boys strolled into the Great Hall together for lunch. They were early, as many of the students were on the way out of classes, and the Great Hall only had a few people, waiting around for the food to appear. They saw Hermione and sat down opposite her, who only lowered her book for a moment to acknowledge the two of them before going back to her book.

Draco shook his head. "You know, it's amazing how Hermione got a boyfriend. I'm amazed that she even noticed Ron."

"That's because he's there all the time! Hi, brothers." Day dropped herself into the seat, looking exhausted even though it was lunch.

"Snape?" Harry wryly asked. Day nodded, as she rested her head on Draco's shoulders.

"I have triple potions with him later." Draco affectionately grinned at Day. All three Gryffindors turned to him with astonishment.

"And you are grinning?" Day asked, stretching her hand to feel Draco's forehead and placed her other hand on her own forehead, as if wondering if Draco was ill. "Normal temperature. Even Slytherins don't like Snape so much."

Draco leant in and whispered. "He's my godfather."

"No fair. No wonder you like his lessons so much. Is the Advanced Potions that bad? Heard that you are the only one taking that. I may be considering that specialization next year too." Day nonchalantly reached out her hand to snatch a chicken drumstick from the food bowls that just appeared. By then the rest of the seventh year Gryffindors had drifted in and Ron sat down opposite Day, hearing her last comment.

Ron's eyes were wide. "Day, why ever would you do that? Are you mad?" Ron exclaimed as the Gryffindors were all staring at Day with horror.

"Well, I had always loved torturing myself. And I happen to LIKE potions. I'm not going to change what I like just because the teacher seems to be in a permanent state of PMS. No offense Draco." Day shot a grin to Draco and continued eating. "So, my dear Quidditch captain, tell me, when are you going to start torturing us this year?" She asked, directing the question to Ron.

Ron frowned, shot a glance at Hermione who seemed engrossed in her book, and replied, "I thought we'll start off slow, for the first two weeks. Saturday 9am to 1.30pm. Okay?" He asked, looking at his seeker and his two chasers. Harry nodded, followed by nods from Seamus and Day. "Day, help me spread the word, will you? I'll talk to McGonagall." He said, getting up immediately to talk to Professor McGonagall, who directed him to Professor Hooch to ask for permission to use the Pitch. He came back smiling and continued eating.

The lessons after lunch were Advanced Charms, except for Draco, who had Advanced Potions in the dungeons. Neville had the afternoon free and offered to walk Draco to the dungeons. Although Draco bristled at the fact that he had to be escorted to the class, he kept silent as he knew that it was necessary that he was not alone. Professor Snape seemed relieved at seeing Neville appear with Draco for the same reason. Upon completing his task, Neville couldn't wait to go back to his dorm room, exiting the dungeons quickly as Draco got ready for his lesson.

***

Dinner found Draco waiting alone at the Gryffindor table for all the other Gryffindors. Gryffindors from different years walked past the silvery blond who was sitting quite near the doors. Most of them had curious looks on their faces instead of disgusted looks he had gotten the previous years as a Slytherin. Draco noticed, wondering if he himself had mellowed since he moved to Gryffindor. _I think it was more of the fact that I no longer had to hide behind my mask._ He thought to himself.

Suddenly he heard a whimper come from the seat next to him, and turned to come face to face with black fur and black liquid eyes. "Hi, Snuffles. Woke up?" Sirius nodded, looking with interest at the food that just appeared on the table. He then looked at Draco and panted.

"You are kidding me! I really love that dog, but letting it eat at the table is too much huh?" Ron exclaimed, as he sat down. Sirius' eyes narrowed and a growl escaped him.

Draco grinned. "He's not sitting next to you. Sit, Snuffles." Draco said, as Sirius sat, happy that he was going to be allowed to eat at the table. Draco then filled the plate in front of Sirius with food from the different food bowls and Sirius started munching his food. "Snuffles, manners." Draco commented disapprovingly, and Sirius whimpered and slowed down his eating speed.

Harry sat down beside Draco and grinned. "Only you would try to teach Snuffles manners. How was Potions?"

"Oh. Okay. He escorted me into the hall and then left to eat peacefully in his own rooms." Draco grinned.

"I think we should allocate a few days in which we spend our time in the common room. Otherwise we're going to be sick of each other soon. Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday?" Hermione stated.

"Are you sick of Ron yet?" Draco teasingly retorted.

"Dray… Don't tease her. Dinner's the only time she's not reading." Harry joked. Hermione blushed and looked at Ron.

"I don't mind. I knew what she was like before I liked her. That way she can't complain when the matches start." Ron let his head fall on Hermione's shoulders and grinned. Everyone laughed at that, knowing that when the matches arrive, Ron would be thinking of Quidditch every single moment of the day.

"Herm, that was a good idea. So tonight is Common Room Time." Harry agreed.

Therefore, the whole group of them found themselves settling down in their common room, surrounded by the other Gryffindors. Ron was playing chess with the different people in the common room, and Hermione and Harry were persuaded by Draco to teach him the new charms that they had learnt in the Advanced Charms class. His reasoning was that since he had time, it would benefit him to learn more charms. After learning the new charms, he ventured towards the chess group, while Harry joined the group playing Exploding Snap and Hermione went back to her books. When Draco came to the chess group, he found that the other students had ganged up together against Ron, with the only two spectators, Day with Snuffles, seated observing them. No one seemed to be questioning why the DOG was watching the chess game. Draco sat down beside Sirius and nudged Sirius to lay his head on his lap to be scratched.

"Why isn't it one-on-one?" Draco asked Day, as he continued to scratch Sirius who was turning himself around, directing Draco where he wanted to be scratched.

"Every Weasley is good at something. Ron is good in chess." Day answered, joining in the scratching of the dog, who was whimpering with pleasure by then.

Finally one of the boys in the group against Ron said "No one is winning. Six of us against him. By right, he won." The six boys slumped in defeat, as Ron relaxed in his seat, grinning.

"Can I play?" Draco asked. Sirius got up from his lap and looked at Draco, while the other six boys all turned to stare at Draco as well. All Ron did was to indicate Draco to sit, as he used his wand to resurrect the broken pieces. They started the chess game two minutes later.

Forty-five minutes later, Ron was perspiring, while Draco looked calm and collected. By the fifteen-minute mark, when the whole common room had not heard Ron say 'Checkmate', they had realized that there was a very interesting chess game going on. By the half-hour mark, Harry came to sit down beside Draco and Hermione sat down beside Ron. Sirius was looking at the two players with big eyes. Ron was actually frowning. The atmosphere of the whole common room seemed to be so tense, as everyone wanted to know the victor of the game. Ron was staring intently at the chess board, while Draco was staring at Ron's face. The clock on the wall chimed ten, as Sirius got up, to go for his rounds around the castle. Harry silently got up and let Sirius out, whispering "six-thirty tomorrow" to remind Sirius for the run. Everyone continued waiting for another five minutes, until, Draco cleared his throat, making many in the common room jump. Ron looked at Draco.

"Stalemate?" Draco drawled. "Draw?" Draco struck out his hand.

Ron looked at the hand in front of him, looked down at his pieces again, and up at Draco. He then shook his hand. "Draw. Good game."

The noise level of the whole common room suddenly went up, as everyone got up to go to their rooms to get ready for bed, discussing about the chess game that just ended in a draw. Ron Weasley had been recognized for his chess skills since his first year and they promised themselves that they would spread this news to their other friends in other houses.

Draco looked at Ron, who was still frowning at the chess board. His chess pieces shrank back from him. "Hey Ron, it really was a good game. I wasn't kidding."

Ron looked up at Draco. "You weren't even frowning."

Draco smiled back at Ron. "You didn't grow up playing chess with opponents in which their aim was to make you show emotions. I learnt since young to play chess not showing ANY emotion. Slytherin chess games had very high stakes as well. I had to be the best to survive. And I was the best at Slytherin."

Ron looked at Draco, seeing the honesty in Draco's eyes, and nodded, getting up, to keep his chess pieces. "Another game on Thursday? I need to train myself. Who else can I practice against but you?" Draco nodded in agreement, as they made their way to their room.


	9. Transfiguration and Chess

**Chapter 9: Transfiguration and Chess**

By lunchtime the next day, almost everyone had heard about the chess game that went on the previous night in the Gryffindor common room. Harry and Draco sat down to lunch with the rest after their free lesson. The two of them went up to their room to practice some spells from the library books they borrowed, but spent the last half an hour kissing each other senseless. Harry still looked a little flushed from the experience. Suddenly, two Ravenclaw sixth years appeared in front of them.

"Hi, we heard about the chess game. The two of us like chess too, and was wondering if we could play against you guys." One of them said.

Ginny helped to introduce the two of them since they were from her Arithmancy classes. "This is Jon Breeks and Joseph Malloy." Jon was black-haired and Joseph had sandy-blond hair. Both looked very studious, with their spectacles and seemed to be afraid that Ron or Draco would scold them for being so daring.

Ron looked at Draco and lifted his eyebrow. Draco shrugged his shoulders. Ron turned back to the two boys and nodded. "Okay, when?"

The eyes of both boys went wide as Jon exclaimed, "You would? Really?"

Ron nodded again. "Sure, what about today after dinner? Um… here?" Both boys nodded and went back to the Ravenclaw table grinning stupidly. Ron stared after them and looked back at Draco. "Those two are weird. They reacted like they expected us to refuse."

Draco smirked. "Maybe they did. They didn't expect the great Draco Malfoy to lower himself to play against them."

"But somehow, you seemed nicer these few days." Neville pointed out.

Draco grinned, slinging his arm over Harry. "It is because I've got friends surrounding me for first time in my life. And that includes you, Neville." Everyone smiled at him.

Seamus, Dean and Ron had the rest of the day free as the afternoon was triple Advanced Transfiguration, Arithmancy or History of Magic. Both Neville and Hermione rushed off as soon as they finished lunch. (Neville due to the fact that he said that Professor Binns being a ghost did not require lunch and had the tendency to start his lesson when he felt like it and Hermione was stopping off at the library again.) Both Draco and Harry slowly made their way into a room near the transfiguration classroom, where they had been having lessons for the past one year. It was a smaller room, with the chairs and tables stacked along the wall. As they went in, they saw Professor Dumbledore with Sirius sitting at his feet. Both Harry and Draco recalled that when they left the Great Hall, Professor Dumbledore was still sitting at the teachers' table drinking tea, and wondered how he managed to reach the classroom before the two of them. Harry shut the door to the room and Professor Dumbledore waved his wand, locking the door magically. Sirius then changed back to his human form.

"Good afternoon. Had a good lunch? Draco, I heard that there was wagers on who was going to win the chess game tonight. I had my money on you and young Mr. Weasley." Professor Dumbledore's eyes twinkled as he got up from his seat. A wave of his wand and the chair went flying to the corner of the classroom, stacking nicely on other chairs.

"Okay. Advanced Transfiguration for you two is under me for this year. Professor Dumbledore is just here so that people don't think that you are being taught by a dog. You two should be ready for Animagus transfiguration. I think it will help you when you need to escape from Voldemort. So, you guys okay with it?" Both Draco and Harry nodded. "Okay. First and foremost, because we are not informing the Ministry, not a word about this to anyone. Not Ron, not Hermione, not anyone in your dorm. The less people know, the better. And we are going to let you drink a potion that would allow you to see your animagus form for half a minute. Professor?" Sirius turned to face Dumbledore who was now holding two goblets. Sirius passed them to the boys, who looked into the goblet they were each holding, into a potion which is transparent. They stood facing each other, looked at each other, clinked their goblets and drank it together. Sirius was grinning, being excited about seeing the forms, while Dumbledore merely looked curious.

The next moment, two forms shimmered into existence in front of both Harry and Draco and both of them blinked in surprise when they saw the two forms. Two jet-black panthers stood in front of them. One had gray eyes when it looked back at Draco, smirking; the other had green eyes when it looked back at Harry. The two panthers then looked at each other and Harry's animagus form sat down on the floor. Draco's animagus form then draped itself all over Harry's animagus form and lifted Harry's form's paw and started licking. Both Harry and Draco blushed at this display of intimacy from their animagus forms, as the two forms shimmered again, disappearing.

Harry stole a look at Draco and found Draco staring right back at him. Both of them seemed unwilling to turn and see how what just happened had affected the two other people in the room. When they finally looked at Sirius and Dumbledore, they found that Sirius' jaw was slack with shock, and even Dumbledore looked a little surprised.

"Well… um… that was…" Harry tried to make the silence in the room more comfortable.

"No, Harry," Dumbledore cut him off, "I now have to do another spell. Allow me." Dumbledore then muttered a spell while pointing his wand at Harry, and all a sudden, a golden thread sprang out and twirled a few rounds around Harry. It then went flying towards Draco and twirled a few rounds as well, before heading back to Dumbledore's wand and the thread disappeared. Dumbledore then sighed.

"Why am I not surprised? Strange things seemed to follow you two around. I should have suspected." He said. All a sudden, four chairs flew towards them, stopping behind each of them. "Please sit down while I explain." Everyone sat down. Harry and Draco were frowning in confusion. "Sirius, want to help explain the situation?" Dumbledore seemed to have regained his good humor and no longer seemed as serious as the previous moment.

"Um… Due to the fact that we didn't have access to the ingredients, when we tried it back then, we didn't use the potion. We just took things as we transformed. It's harder, but the only resources we had then were ourselves. But, even if we took the potion, together, the animagus forms that the potion allows us to see would NOT have interacted with each other." Sirius said.

Both Harry and Draco sat up straight. Their animagus forms clearly interacted with each other, and actually displayed… both boys blushed again. Seeing the blushes on them, Professor Dumbledore chuckled. "The only animagus forms that will interact with each other were of people who were bonded to each other."

This comment took a while to sink into the two boys' minds.

"Bonded? How?" Draco finally asked.

"That was why I had to perform that spell. If a red thread came out to twirl around you two, then the bond was man-made, in that someone actually bonded you together." Dumbledore answered.

Harry frowned. "And a gold thread?"

Dumbledore smiled at the two boys opposite him. "In the last few days, did you feel especially contented just to be with each other?"

Both boys blinked at the sudden change of subject. Both nodded, as they recalled their free periods in which they were actually unwilling to leave the dorm to face the outside people, as they just wanted to be with each other.

Dumbledore finally said, "Like two parts of a whole. The gold thread indicates soul mates."

From Sirius' point of view, it must have been quite comical, seeing both boys' jaws dropping due to the shock of the statement. _Dumbledore had the tendency to drop bombs on people's head like that._ Sirius sighed. He recalled that night when Draco was going to hyperventilate at the news that he was the heir of Slytherin, and all Harry did was touch and talk to him, and Draco calmed down immediately.

"The reason why the bond had taken so long to surface was probably due to the fact that you two started off on the wrong foot back when you were first years. You were always quarrelling. That kind of outbursts from the two of you must have been very passionate, seeing that you two are supposed to be soul mates. You two had been practically inseparable for the past three days, allowing the bond to strengthen a little bit. As time goes by, you will realize that some other powers might surface." Sirius explained.

"What kind of powers?" Harry asked.

"We don't know. Not many soul mates were recorded in history. The theory was that powers given to soul mates were not fixed. We don't want to tell you much as it is better that your bodies developed your own set of powers. But one thing is for sure. The powers that will surface will greatly depend on the magical powers you both hold. As soul mates, you are actually functioning as a whole unit. That means that when you do magic, you use magic from a pool of magical powers shared between the two of you. And seeing that you are both heirs, you have a greater pool than the normal pairs of soul mates." Dumbledore explained.

"So this is a self-discovery thing?" Draco asked.

"Um… of course, a relationship between the two of you would really strengthen the bond." Dumbledore mumbled. "Well, Sirius, do you have anything else planned for today?" Sirius shook his head. "Early dismissal. Go talk about this, but try not to let the whole world knows." Dumbledore said, seeing Sirius change back before unlocking the door and sweeping out of the door with Sirius. "Come on, Snuffles." He said as the door closed behind them.

Harry and Draco were left sitting staring into space. Then Draco turned to Harry. "Did he just tell us to go have sex?" Draco asked, astonished by what Dumbledore had said in the past ten minutes. He had just recovered from the shock of being the Heir of Slytherin, and now the news of being bonded to Harry fell on his head.

Harry started laughing as he stared at the floor in front of him. Draco stared at Harry, as he realized that this was not the type of sound he was used to when Harry normally laughed. This sound sounded… hysterical. The next moment, the window pane of the only window in the room broke, just as Draco flinched from a sudden pain in his head. Draco suddenly realized that Harry was losing control. His unleashed powers were affecting the room. He quickly stood up, hurled the currently sobbing Harry into his arms and retreated to one corner of the room, furthest from the window, slumping down to the floor.

"Harry… Harry… come back to me… why… Harry… it's Dray… come back to me… and tell me why you are sobbing… Harry…" Draco mumbled into Harry's neck, as Harry snuggled into his body, seemingly wanting to hide from the whole world out there. Draco didn't know what to do but to hold on to Harry and hope for the best. Harry seemed to come back to himself, realizing that he was sobbing into Draco's robes and tried to stifle his sobbing. "It's okay to cry. Cry all you want. Just tell me why later." So Harry went on sobbing to his heart's content. All Draco did was to hold on to Harry, caressing the back of Harry's neck with one hand.

Harry was muttering to himself in his mind. _It's not enough that I'm the fucking boy-who-lived. I got to be that stupid Gryffindor's heir as well. Why the hell did he have to get married? It would have saved us time and effort if he was gay and now Dray's dragged into this stupid war. Even though he's an heir too but no one really knows, so he can be uninvolved, but no, we have to be bonded. How on earth am I going to protect him when that stupid snake-headed bastard come and kill me? Where can I hide him and because of me he will have to face danger and how am I going to live on if something happen to him and I love him so much and that stupid Dumbledore telling us to have sex…_

All of a sudden, Draco could feel all sorts of feelings sweep across him. Anger, frustration, fear, love and comfort. When the last two emotions swept across his whole body, he tightened his embrace around Harry because he realized that the emotions were coming from Harry. He wondered why he could suddenly feel Harry's emotions. He then realized that Harry seemed to be calming down, as his sobbing became sniffling.

"Harry? Ready to tell me the reason to this sudden loss of control?" Draco softly asked.

Harry pushed himself back from Draco to look at Draco's eyes, filled with tenderness for him. He sniffed and nodded. "Well… I… everything hit me at one go. I knew about the Heir thing beforehand. But when I realized that you are also an Heir… At first I told myself that no one knew that you are Slytherin's Heir, so even if you don't get involved with the war, it's okay. I got pretty protective of you I guess. Then I find out that you are bonded to me. This kind of soul mate bond means that one cannot live without the other. And I don't want to lose you, Dray."

Draco looked at his raven-haired boyfriend in front of him and used the sleeve of his robe to wipe the tears off Harry's cheeks. What he said did tally with the feelings that he experienced… except for one emotion. "Harry, I need to tell you something." Harry looked up at Draco, frowning. "Just now, when you were crying, I… I felt your emotions. And what you told me tallied with the emotions I felt, except… for this." Draco tried to imitate the love that he felt coming from Harry previously. Harry gasped. "Did I get it right?" Draco looked at Harry, hopefully.

Harry looked at Draco's hopeful eyes and sighed. He didn't want to tell Draco about that till… he didn't know when. _But I guess there's no hiding it now. I do love him._ "I love you Draco Malfoy." He smiled at Draco.

Draco's eyes went misty, as he smiled at Harry. Harry felt Draco's happiness flood his whole body, as Draco bent down to drop a soft kiss on Harry's lips. "I love you too, Harry Potter." He then kissed Harry again. Harry used his tongue to lick Draco's lips, as he opened them, granting Harry entrance. Harry then touched his tongue to Draco's tongue as contentment washed over the two of them. Harry withdrew his tongue as they parted with their eyes wide.

"How come we can feel each other's emotions now?" Harry panted, because the kiss they had just shared made him want to kiss Draco again.

Draco shook his head, staring at Harry's lips. "I think it was you. I felt a sudden pain in my head just now when the window broke. I think the power you unleashed broke through the emotional barrier between our minds."

Harry sighed and leant back into Draco's arms and relaxed. "I wish we were back in our dorms."

"We could transfigure a bed." Draco's eyes slipped shut, enjoying the feel of his boyfriend in his arms.

Harry shook his head, "Too lazy." Draco just smiled at his answer.

"You do know that I was never going to leave you to face Voldie alone." Draco softly asked.

Harry nodded. "I'll just have to find a hole to dump you in I guess." He teasingly answered.

"Harry, promise that you won't leave me. I lost too much. I don't want to lose you too."

Harry looked back at Draco, and lifted his hand to caress Draco's cheek. "Not if I can help it. Promise." He smiled.

Draco returned his smile. "You know, you never did answer me."

"What do you mean?"

"Did Dumbledore just tell us to go have sex?" Draco grinned.

Harry grimaced. "I guess. He just wanted to encourage the relationship so that the bond can form and we can have better powers and… his Golden Boy will be more powerful than before."

Draco frowned. "Harry, don't. From what I know about you, you hated the fame. You hate people calling you 'Golden Boy'. I'm sorry I called you that before. One thing I want you to understand. WE started the relationship before we knew about the bond thing. Maybe we were fated to be together. But in no way is my love for you false. Okay? Yes, we may become pawns of the Light due to the bond and heir status, but the powers that will develop are going to help us keep ourselves alive. So don't turn cynical on me. I'm cynical enough for the both of us." Harry nodded.

"So… do you just want to… you know… I don't mind… it's just that… I'm making a mess out of this." Harry sighed.

Draco grinned, as Harry looked very cute and vulnerable when he was fumbling with words. He pulled Harry back into his embrace. "Relax. Harry, I still think it's too fast. Not that I don't want you. I think when we are both ready for the next step, we'll know. Right now, let's just get to know each other, okay?" Harry nodded, melting himself into Draco's body.

Both of them stayed in that room till fifteen minutes before dinner, talking about their childhood. Draco told him about his childhood at the manor, where he had to be very well-disciplined as a child. His father already started teaching him dark curses before he even knew that they were prohibited, and would beat him every time he misbehaved or failed to learn a spell within the allocated time. Draco had learnt since young to harden himself against his father's insults and learnt to think on his own. His childhood was the reason why he actually dared to say 'no' in front of Voldemort. He wanted to stop living in his father's shadows. Harry then told Draco about his childhood living under the stairs and being the maid of his muggle relatives. How they ignored him when they didn't want him there and scolded and insulted his parents and himself when they were angry. Whenever either one started getting upset by what he was saying, the other would send comfort waves through the mind link to soothe him. Finally, before leaving the room, Draco repaired the broken window with his wand.

***

Dinner found the Gryffindor bunch to be rather lively as quite a few students stopped at the group encouraging Ron and Draco to 'slaughter the Ravenclaws'. Draco was quite amused by the fact that the younger students tended to forget that he himself was not from Gryffindor. Many of the Gryffindor boys were patting him on his back in encouragement for the game, as if they had been friends with him for years. The other house tables were just as lively, as students were chattering about the chess game. It was as if it was a chess tournament. Many of the other house students frequently made their way to two particular Gryffindor fifth years, who were Day's friends, as they were in charge of the 'school-wide' secret wager on who was going to win the chess games. The two of them were so surprised when Snuffles appeared in front of them before dinner, with two galleons held in his mouth. Day persuaded them to let the dog enter into the bet, and they wrote 'Ravenclaw' and 'Gryffindor' on a piece of parchment to let Snuffles choose who he wanted to bet on. Snuffles, of course, placed his paws on the word 'Gryffindor' and the two boys entered the dog into the bet, both of them wondering what the dog would do with the money if he won.

"Brother, excited?" Day stopped behind Draco, and embraced him from behind.

"You know, if I didn't know he's gay, I would be jealous." Harry softly said to Day. Everyone else at the table was talking to everyone else and no one heard his soft declaration except for Draco and Day.

Day's eyes went wide, as her smile broaden. She leant down till her head was on Draco's shoulder and asked softly, "Really? You two?" Harry and Draco both nodded, and Day had to use her hand to cover her mouth to prevent herself from giving in to the temptation of going 'awww….'

Draco whispered, "Don't tell people yet, we don't want to confirm anything to the general public." Day quickly nodded, as she straightened her body.

"Ron, did you know that the wager is tilting towards Ravenclaws? They say that they are supposed to have the brains. And that Gryffindors have the tendency to just rush in, hence not good chess players. Obviously not many people remembered about your first year huh? They also forgot that Draco here is not a Gryffindor, but a Slytherin. Flatten them for me." Day grinned. Ron smiled back at Day.

The food was cleared from the tables, but the students wanted to watch the game as well. The only professors who did not leave the hall were Professor Lupin and Professor Dumbledore. Jon and Joseph came to Ron and Draco, offering the use of their sets, to which Ron agreed. Thus the sets were laid out on the Gryffindor table. Seeing that so many people wanted to watch the game, Professor Lupin cast a spell in which the spectators looked at the front of the hall which served as a screen. This way, everyone would be watching the screen, and not at the four players, creating unnecessary pressure on them. The students were to be quiet as well.

"Okay Ron, I don't care about the wagers or anything. Main thing is to try to keep calm and treat it like normal common room chess game. I played you last night and you are really good. Okay?" Draco said softly, as they made their way to the chess set. Ron grinned and nodded at him. Draco got a wave of love from Harry through the mind link and sent happiness back to Harry. He looked up just in time to catch Harry smiling at him.

They started the game with the Ravenclaws making the first move. The students of the whole hall were silently staring at the big screen as the pieces on the both chess boards got less and less. Instead of paying attention on the screen or the players, Harry used the chance to look around the hall, observing the spectators. When he sneaked a peek at the wager-book just now, he noticed that the Slytherins had the tendency to bet on Ravenclaws, due to the house rivalry against Gryffindors and Draco Malfoy. Hufflepuffs decided to bet on the Ravenclaws too. The Gryffindors and the Ravenclaws of course each supported their own house. Only one Slytherin betted on Gryffindor to win, and that was Blaise Zabini. The only reasoning was that Blaise must have known about Draco's expertise in chess through experience. And Draco did mention before that Blaise had no inclination to serve the dark lord. Looking around, he also realized that at each house tables, there were a few students who had a piece of parchment in front of them and every time each player made a chess move, they immediately scribbled something.

"Why are some of them taking notes?" Harry whispered to Day who had come to sit down beside him, in Draco's vacated seat.

"Some of them wanted to learn some chess moves. Most of them are going to analyze tonight's games to find out what a player did to win or lose the game." Day whispered back. Harry's eyebrows rose, wondering not for the first time why this game was so important.

Thirty minutes had passed. Ron looked rather calm to Harry. Draco just looked bored as he waited for his opponent Joseph to make his move. Harry then realized that the two of them were people who actually look forward to attention. Draco grew up thinking that he was superior and deserved attention from people. Ron grew up as the youngest son in a family with seven children and was determined to seek attention. Both of them were actually quite similar.

Although Draco did not look like he was paying attention, he was paying attention to his game. Within the first ten minutes of the game he had already known what type of chess player Joseph was. He spent the time waiting for Joseph to make a move to look around the hall and to look up at the screen at how Ron was doing. From what he could see, Ron was doing quite well, as Jon underestimated Ron. Everyone assumed that Ron's fiery temper would be the type of style in which he played his chess, but they didn't know how wrong they were. Chess was very important to Ron, mainly because it was the only thing that his whole family lost out to him. Whatever Ron Weasley cares very much about, he would put his mind to it and not just his emotions. And from what he could see from the screen, he had just a few more moves before winning. Glancing at Ron, he caught Ron's eyes and silently nodded. Ron returned his nod. It's time to end the game.

One after another, the whole hall heard Ron and Draco checkmate their opponents and stick their hands out to shake hands with them. Both Jon and Joseph looked at each other and dejectedly shook the hands extended to them. The noise level in the hall went up as many were astonished that the Ravenclaws lost. The Gryffindors only crowded around to congratulate the two winners and to collect their winnings.

Harry went up to the two winners, fighting his way through the crowd of well-wishers and slung his arms around the two of them. "Well, I never knew you two could coordinate yourself in such a beautiful display of teamwork huh, Malfoy and Weasley?" He grinned.

Both of them turned to Harry and grinned, before turning to each other. "Good game, Malfoy." Ron smirked.

"Good game, Weasley." Draco smirked back at him. The whole group of friends laughed as they made their way out of the Great Hall back up to their dorms.

They never saw a black dog run happily up to Professor Lupin, biting a pouch full of galleons in his mouth.


	10. Loneliness in a sea of people

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: There is an assault and rape scene at the end of the chapter, not involving the main 2 characters.

**Chapter 10: Loneliness in a sea of people**

Draco looked up to the blue skies as he laid on his back on the Quidditch stands. Subconsciously he could hear Ron's shouting as he bellowed at his players for their 'incompetence'. After spending two months helping the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain plan strategies as well as aiding him in his 'bellowing' during the practices, he had come to admire Ron's ability as a Captain. However, he had to acknowledge that Ron Weasley could really be a sadistic Captain at times. You could see that from the relentless way he trained his Senior and Junior teams. Although he first said that they were to start out slow when term started, but after their first Saturday practice, he was so dissatisfied with his team's performance that he upped the second week to three practices per week. Many a times, the players would drag themselves up to the castle after their practice to just fall into bed in exhaustion. Some of them even had problems getting up on Sundays after a full day of training on Saturday, choosing to laze in bed and do their homework there.

He subconsciously pitied the players, especially Harry. Due to the fact that the two of them deciding that learning how to transform into their animagus form was very important as a means of escape from danger, they had specially requested for Sirius to increase their lessons by adding a session on Monday evening. Between the Quidditch practices, extra Transfiguration lessons and their piling amounts of homework from the professors, all Harry had time to do almost every evening was fall into bed exhausted. The only chance the two actually got to practice new spells and interact was during their limited free periods and on Sunday. His bond with Harry had deepened due to their relationship, even though they had not yet gone all the way yet. They had not really discovered too many new powers, just that the emotional link between the two of them was stronger than before and that the two could actually dream at night together. Very often, they would comfort each other in their dreamscape when the other had nightmares. They also discovered that they could now handle charms and spells better than before and learn them faster too. Harry also discovered himself to be improving in his potion-making skills, such that Professor Snape could not really find many problems during his classes to deduct points for.

Draco then reflected on his stay in Gryffindor. Since the first Saturday, in which the weekend party was actually a welcome party for him, the Gryffindors had come to accept him as part of the house. Some of the junior Gryffindors actually willingly approached him to ask for help in Potions. Another reason was the chess game with Ravenclaws. The whole school seemed to get the impression that he entered the game as a Gryffindor, seeing that it was termed as the 'Gryffindor against Ravenclaw chess game'. A week after the chess game, he still had some of those Ravenclaws coming up to Ron and himself, asking them to explain the purpose of a particular chess move. They were still analyzing the game. Draco briefly wondered if they had nothing better to do with their time. His relationships with people in general, were better than ever. He had never in his life at Hogwarts, been surrounded by so many people willingly.

Looking up at the Gryffindor players in the skies, he caught sight of Day, going through the strategies. Draco had come to realize that he was quite protective of this 'little sister', after getting to know her better when he was spending time with her in the common room as well as other times when she joined the group for meals. True to her word, she didn't tell anyone about the relationship between Harry and he, and the school only knew about the relationship a month ago, when the two of them strolled into dinner hand-in-hand. Harry even gave Draco a chaste kiss in front of the whole school so as to make sure that everyone knew. He however realized that in the recent one week, she didn't seem as cheerful as before. She had also been quieter in the mornings and when doing her homework in the common room, Draco had caught her staring into space. He didn't want to invade her personal space, so he left it alone.

All a sudden, two figures blocked the sunlight that had been shinning on Draco. "Hey, aren't you supposed to be helping Ron do the torturing sequence?" Dean said, sitting down a step below Draco, looking up at the players, especially at Seamus.

Hermione sat down beside Draco with a lunch basket. She then sent out some red sparks with her wand to Ron, indicating the arrival of lunch. "Torture is right. I don't know how long they will last before they collapse from exhaustion." Hermione scowled.

"Herm, Ron will know what to do, after all he is the Captain." Draco answered, seeing Ron indicate to the team to go down to the stands for lunch. Everyone but Day flew down immediately. Day just shook her head and seemed to go on practicing flying. Draco frowned. He then pulled away his attention from Day when Harry came up and collapsed in front of Draco. Draco handed him a towel that he had ready for him to wipe his perspiration so as to not get a chill. Hermione just shook her head as she started laying out the lunch the house elves put together on a picnic cloth for the team. Dean started to pour drinks for everyone.

"Ron, why's Day still up there?" Harry asked.

"She said she'll be down later." Ron answered, as he started helping himself to the food from the basket. Harry nodded and pulled himself up to sit beside Draco for his lunch.

***

Day wasn't that hungry. She was chastising herself for all the mistakes she made that morning. Looking down at the group at the stands, and how everyone seemed to be with their beloved ones, she suddenly felt really lonely up in the sky. As an only child, she would have thought that she would be used to the loneliness. It didn't seem that bad when she reached Hogwarts, when she was surrounded by people, mainly the fact that she had friends here. And she did recently gain a 'brother'. She then recalled what happened on the first day of school, when she teased Draco, wanting to know what Draco's sexual preference was. She was so elated when Draco and Harry paired up in a relationship. However, casting another look at the group at the stands, she noticed that almost everyone was paired up. Ron was chatting with Hermione while Harry was resting by leaning on Draco and Draco was wiping Harry's perspiration off his forehead. Seamus had his head on Dean's shoulders and even the other players had friends chatting with them. _How come I seemed to be the only one who was alone? And why on earth is this bugging me NOW?_ She scolded herself as she attempted to blink back tears.

She couldn't go back to the stands with this expression on her face, so she guided her broom towards the Quidditch locker rooms. _I'll just wash my face and let them have the idea that I forgone lunch so as to clean up a little._ She landed in front of the locker rooms and made her way to the sink. Splashing water onto her face, she looked up to the mirror, as she caught sight of her own reflections, tilting her head, thinking. She had found that in the past week, with all the couples forming around her, she had been having difficulty being cheerful in front of others. Some mornings she just wanted to lie in bed and not get up. It could be due to the furious Quidditch training, tiring her out. When doing her homework in the common room, she often found herself losing the concentration, and many a times just gave up doing, favoring going in search of Snuffles and hugging the big black dog. Something told her that the dog was special, because when she talked to him, it was as if he understood everything she said, and the dog never got sick of her, always sitting silently next to her even when she was not talking. Her own friends sometimes found her to be annoying and would shoo her away, thinking that she would never be hurt by that shooing. She sighed when she remembered that no matter how annoying she had been, both Harry and Draco had never shooed her away. She was thankful for that small gesture on their part, but even she knew that you don't take up too much time of people who were currently in a relationship.

She stared at her own reflection in the mirror again. Seeing her short black hair, and her face, she knew from experience that she was not pretty among Chinese, and not many people go for her type. She never had a boyfriend, as she once heard boys commented that they prefer pretty girls who were not as smart as them. Somehow the fact that she seemed to ace all her classes scared guys away. Not that she really wanted guys who were so shallow, but it would be good for her morale if someone would just send a small card to her during Valentine's Day. She sighed again.

"Why the long face?" She heard, startling her, as she whipped around, to see Draco and Harry lounging at the door of the locker room.

"Nothing. Why aren't you guys eating?" She asked, trying to smile for her two 'brothers'. Both Harry and Draco frowned when they saw that she was giving them a fake grin.

Draco had realized that Day was no longer in the air, and yet had not joined them for lunch. He softly told Harry about it and they decided to check the locker room to see if she was there. On the way, he mentioned to Harry that Day seemed to be a little depressed and Harry said that he noticed a little of that too. He once saw Day sitting at the steps to the castle, with Snuffles sitting beside her, staring out into the sunset, with a forlorn expression on her face.

Harry walked towards Day, tossing a wrapped sandwich towards her. Using her Chaser reflexes, she caught and unwrapped it. Biting into the sandwich, she watched both Harry and Draco warily as she chewed. Draco leant against the wall next to her and was staring at her with his grey eyes. Harry was leaning against one of the sinks and casually crossed his arms in front of him. A thought hit her, if those two in front of her were not wizards; they could easily be models out in the muggle world. She grinned to that.

"Now, that's the grin I'm used to seeing, but somehow did not get to see it all week. What happened to it?" Draco asked, using his hand to tilt Day's face up to look at him.

Day shook her head, looked down and continued eating the sandwich. Draco shot a glance to Harry, who seemed to not know what to do either.

"Day, for Merlin's sake, just tell us. Something is bothering you. What's wrong?" Harry sighed.

"It's stupid." Day finally muttered, finishing her sandwich.

"Try us." Draco said, almost ready to plead her to talk to them.

Day looked up at the two of them and finally gave in. "I'm lonely." She mumbled, so softly that the two of them almost missed it. The eyebrows of both boys shot up, as this was something that they did not expect, seeing that Day seemed the kind who would be able to survive even if the world's population died out. Then both of them suddenly realized that that was what Day wanted everyone to see, and her loneliness was normal as she was human. Both boys looked at each other and all a sudden, Day found herself being hugged by both of them, front and back. She stiffened up at first, but relaxed in the hug, as she realized that they only wanted to comfort her.

"Maybe we had been insensitive. I did notice that people had the tendency to pair up recently. Must be the water." Draco gave Day a soft kiss on her forehead.

"Day, you kept us, remember? No matter what happens in the future, please remember that you said that and we are holding you to the promise. That means that we will be there when you need us. Not every moment, yes, but whenever you need company, all you need to do is to tell us. Okay?" Harry continued softly.

Day suddenly felt her heart tightened, as the tears that she had been trying to hold back in the past week overwhelmed her and flowed down her cheeks. She burrowed her head on Draco's chest and started sobbing silently. All Draco and Harry could do was to be there, comforting her with their presence. She finally stopped crying, pulling back from the three-person embrace and smiled up at the two guys. She suddenly felt lighter than she woke up that morning, knowing that no matter what the future holds, she would still have the two of them to count on. She then pushed the two away and headed to the sink to wash her face. Lifting her face to look into the mirror, she grinned at the two boys using the mirror and said, "I'm thirsty and hungry. Shall we go out to join them? And hope that Ron left me some food."

Seeing the sunshine grin plastered on Day's face, Draco was suddenly grasped by a wave of protectiveness for her. Somehow, in the two months that he was here, he had gained the family that he never had.

***

Harry sighed as he continued to frown down at the parchment in front of him. He was a little tired from his Quidditch practice, which Ron finally allowed them to pack up before dinner time. He shot a glare at Ron who sat opposite him, also frowning at the parchment in front of him. He knew that Ron was a little anxious about the Quidditch matches that were coming up, but the way he was torturing the team was as if their team was the worst team on earth. He then glanced at Draco beside him, who was humming to himself as he worked on his assignment. Harry rolled his eyes. Of course he was happy doing the homework. All three of them were working on their Potions assignment. Hermione was opposite Draco, doing her Arithmancy homework, as she had already finished the Potions homework on the day it was assigned. All of them were in the Gryffindor common room as Saturday nights was supposed to be spent with their housemates in the common room. Chastising himself, he tried pulling his thoughts back to the uses of the separate ingredients of Wound Cleaning Potion, but found his thought returning to his soul mate seated next to him.

Harry was now used to being with Draco for almost every hour of the day. On days in which they were separated for Draco's Advanced Potions lesson and Harry's Advanced Charms lesson, very often they would meet each other outside the Great Hall and their hands would search out for each other's to grasp together. If it wasn't for the fact that they were soul mates, they themselves would find the behavior unhealthy. After telling the whole school about their relationship, they were hardly seen without each other around the school. Both of them could feel their magic bonding, as Professor Dumbledore had suggested that it may be easier for them to draw magic from the magical pool between them instead of themselves the week after they were told that they were soul mates. In adapting to that change, they found themselves improving in almost all areas of their magic, and were able to learn their animagus transformation faster as well.

Their animagus transformation lessons were very painful. They had to first train themselves to clear their minds to learn to concentrate. Then they attempted to change their limbs into paws. The shifting of the bones within their body during the change was really painful, but as they practiced, they got used to the pain. The trick was to expect the pain. Then when the whole process was practiced to shorten the time needed and lessened the pain, Sirius had them attempt to transform their body as well, into forming the panther's body, and tail. The final change incorporated was their head, which was even more painful then before, because every single bone in the head had to move, and even their teeth had to be changed. Within the last two months, they had only been able to change into the full panther twice, and that was during the previous week's lessons. Both Sirius and Professor Dumbledore were impressed by the speed in which they had used to learn the skill, and all they had to do was to perfect the skill such that it was as natural as what Sirius could do.

The both of them had also used their free time to bond and learn new defense spells. Harry had come to treasure their free periods together, practicing the spells and discovering each other. One night in their second week together, Harry had woken up from a nightmare and could feel waves of comfort from the mind link they shared. He had gotten up from his bed to go to the washroom to wash his tears away, and coming back to his bed, he saw Draco sitting up in bed. Draco wordlessly beckoned to Harry and Harry crawled into Draco's bed to fall asleep in his arms. Since then, he had crawled into Draco's bed in the middle of the night numerous times and when Draco woke up from his own nightmares, he went in search of Harry in Harry's bed. Some weekends, they just randomly chose whose bed to sleep in so that they could wake up together on Sunday mornings. The bliss they felt waking up in each other's arms was something that they did not come in contact with before.

Looking fondly at the good-looking blond beside him, he noticed a light reddish bruise on his neck, which was not completely covered by the collar of the shirt under the robe. He blushed, remembering how Draco got that bruise. The two of them was kissing each other in the washroom before dinner. Slipping his mouth from Draco's mouth, he had trailed his mouth down Draco's pale neck to his collarbone. Concentrating on nibbling the patch of skin had made Draco moan with pleasure as Draco clenched his fingers in Harry's hair, arching his neck for Harry's mouth. In the times when they were fooling around, Harry found out that Draco was very sensitive around the neck area, and they would often emerge from their free periods with patches of pale bruises on Draco's neck. Shaking his head now, he glanced back at the parchment before him and hurriedly scanned his Potions textbook to quickly complete the assignment.

Finally half an hour later, he slammed the textbook shut and blew lightly on his parchment so that the ink would dry. Draco by then was leaning back on the common room couch reading his Potions textbook leisurely. Harry nudged Draco, who upon giving Harry a glance, turned himself and laid his head on Harry's lap, as he continued to read from the light from the fire. Harry then placed his hand on Draco's stomach and idly stroked his boyfriend. Looking up, he found his two best friends staring at him, both of them smiling.

"What?" Harry asked. Hermione then laid her head on Ron's shoulder.

"You two had really spent too much time together. You don't even need to talk. And I swear you know what each other are thinking all the time." Ron said softly, adjusting his position so that Hermione was more comfortable.

"But that's what you two did all the time." Draco answered, not even looking at them, even though he saw what Ron did from the corner of his eye.

Harry looked down at Draco. The two of them had decided on the night of finding out that they were soul mates to not tell Ron and Hermione or anyone from their dorm about them being soul mates. This was to protect them as the less they know the better. As good friends of Harry and Draco, they were already among those who were most likely to be targeted for kidnaping by the enemies for hostage or information. All they knew were that the two of them were in a relationship.

"Yah, we do that. But we had been together longer." Hermione argued.

"Time doesn't mean anything to a relationship right? It's the emotions behind it all." Harry answered, brushing a few strands of hair behind Draco's ear. In the past two months, Draco had stopped using gel on his hair, once Harry commented that he liked his silvery blond hair soft and free from the stiff constraint of the gel. Day even said after the change that in the unofficial survey did in the school, most of the students found that Draco without his impeccable neat hair was even sexier than before. That and the fact that Harry seemed to exhibit a love for ruffling his unusually blond hair made him throw away his bottle of gel.

Hearing Harry almost announcing his love for him to Ron and Hermione sent a feeling of being loved through Draco as he beamed up at his boyfriend. He sent that wave of emotion through their mind link and almost laughed out loud as Harry visibly shuddered and grinned down at him. Looking at the clock, he frowned as he saw that it was almost ten o'clock.

"It's almost ten. Day's not back yet." Draco commented.

Harry looked at him in surprise. "Where did she go?"

"Detention. Working in the greenhouses till nine o'clock. She told me that she should be back before curfew, as I told her that I wanted to talk to her." Draco said, looking into the emerald eyes of Harry.

Ron shrugged. "Don't worry. Most likely it ended late. She should be back soon." Ron said as he went back to frowning at the assignment that he had yet to finish. Harry nodded as he picked up his Potions textbook to start studying for a test that Snape was giving them soon, as Draco also went back to his book.

***

Day hurried along the dark passageways as she made her way back to the Gryffindor dorms. Her detention had ended late because of some plants which had grown too huge for their pots and Professor Sprout had requested their re-potting in the last minute. Glancing at her watch and reading the time using the limited light from her surrounding, she found that she barely had five minutes to go back to her dorm before curfew started.

Suddenly, she heard a noise in front of her in the passageway which was not fully lit. She froze and took out her wand, looking into the dark area.

"Hello? Anyone there?" She asked, as she slowly approached the area where she heard the sound from. All of a sudden, a pair of hands came from behind and one hand clamped over her mouth as the other went around her neck. Her screams were muffled by the hand above her mouth. Another pair of hands came up and snatched her wand from her hand and grasped her hands in a tight grip. She could feel herself being pulled backwards, towards a wall, and suddenly felt herself going through the wall with her assailants trying to stop her hands and legs from hitting them. She heard someone yell a spell and all a sudden, her legs and hands could no longer move. Her assailants lowered her onto the floor and suddenly the lights in this room lit as she saw who the ones who attacked her were.

"It's no use shouting. This place is soundproof. No one can hear you, even if that stupid dog patrols by outside later, it can't hear you. So you might as well save your breath, bitch." Pansy Parkinson sneered at her as she stood at her feet. Crabbe and Goyle grunted their laughter behind her.

"Parkinson, what do you want? Let go of me! Someone will know when I'm missing." Day tried to not betray her fear, as she stared at Pansy who was holding her wand.

"People would only think that your detention ended late. No one would know that you are missing till a few hours later. Or they may think that you are out playing a prank. By the time they find you, you won't be alive anymore." Pansy continued sneering at her.

"Why are you doing this?" Day demanded, as she stared at her wand. _If I summon my wand, maybe it will fly to me. But my hands can't move and…_

Pansy saw Day staring at the wand and with a vindictive smirk, snapped the wand into two. Day winced, as the wand had never left her side for the past four years and had almost become a magical extension of her. She suppressed the whimper at Pansy's action but couldn't keep the grimace from her facial expression as she looked at the broken wand that Pansy dropped on the floor beside her.

"Why? First and foremost, your face disgusts me. Secondly, orders from our Great Lord. He said that the three of us will be initiated when we get rid of a good friend of Harry Potter. Seeing that the whole gang seemed to travel around in packs, you were the only one whom we had access to. And lastly, my two good friends here are hot for your body. There is the additional incentive in that when we kill you, the Slytherin will be able to win the Quidditch match. Lots of advantages, so why shouldn't we kill you? Enough talking. Time for some action." Pansy sneered at Day and suddenly punched Day. Day could feel the blood flowing down her nose as she reeled back from the punch. Crabbe and Goyle gripped her robes and started ripping them off, while slapping her face. As her limbs were still unable to move, it was very difficult to fight the two boys who were trying to strip her naked. The two of them were mauling the flesh that they uncovered, making Day want to vomit. Day was screaming for them to stop what they were doing when she saw Pansy pull out a dagger. When Crabbe and Goyle finally got her naked, they stepped back for Pansy who was holding the dagger with a manic look in her eyes. By then, Day was cowering with fear on the floor and screaming for help, while trying to move backwards using her body, but was unsuccessful as Pansy's henchmen pulled her hands and legs to prevent her from moving.

Pansy kneeled down and looked at Day's body. "I heard that you are a virgin. So no one saw this before? Vincent, you won the bet right? So you get first taste of her tonight. But before you do anything; let's add some graffiti on your lovely body." She then pressed her dagger onto Day's breast and it cut into the flesh, as Day screamed from the pain. She sliced a few more times on the same breast, before doing the same to her other breast. Pansy then watched morbidly as the blood flowed down Day's torso onto the floor. She then moved on to the limbs of the girl who was withering on the floor in pain, as she slashed lines that crisscrossed each other all along her hands and legs. She then stepped back, satisfied with the large amount of blood flowing out of the girls body onto the dark floor, as the two boys behind her stepped forward, and Crabbe started to unbutton his pants.

Day was lying on the floor, as pain surrounded her. How could anyone do this to her? Why? All she could feel was the knife slicing into her flesh till she could no longer differentiate where the pain was coming from. She had stopped screaming, just lying there, hoping the pain would either stop or kill her. Her eyes started to blank out, as the only constant thing was the pain. Suddenly she felt some one spreading her legs, and someone lifting her hips up. The next moment, she felt someone enter her, with a sudden burst of pain from her lower body.

Her eyes closed as blackness greeted her.


	11. Picking up the Pieces

**Chapter 11: Picking up the Pieces**

Ron finally slammed his textbook shut and stretched his hands above him. Draco frowned at Ron, who had disturbed him from reading his textbook in peace. Glancing at the clock, he frowned at the time.

"Dray, what's wrong?" Harry, feeling worry through the mind link, looked up at Draco.

"It's eleven. Day's not back yet. Detention should have ended long ago." Draco picked up his stuff, as he saw Ron and Hermione packing up. Harry packed his things up as well.

"Let's dump our things and go find her." Harry commented, frowning as he got up. The group made their way up to their room. When they entered the Study Area, Harry muttered, "Accio Marauder's Map" and the map came zooming out of the room just as Harry placed his things on his table. Holding the blank piece of parchment, he touched his wand to the parchment and muttered, "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good" and the map of Hogwarts appeared on the parchment. Both Draco and Harry were intently peering at it, trying to see where Day was. Draco found it first, as a sense of unease gripped his heart.

"What does it mean… if a dot is… flickering?" Draco looked up at Harry, who was frowning at the flickering dot labeled Day Lee.

Hermione gasped, snatched the map from their hands and looked at it. She then turned her pale face to the two equally pale boys. She then turned to the panel, pressed the button for it to open, with the other people in the room rushing behind her, heading towards the flickering dot on the map.

Along the way, Harry snatched the map back from Hermione and being more used to running, he ran ahead, with Ron at his heels. Reaching the almost unlit passageway, he glanced at the map before turning around frantically trying to find Day. "Day! Where are you? The damned map said she's here." By then Draco, Hermione, Neville, Ginny, Seamus and Dean had reached there too, followed by Sirius, who saw them running along the passageway and joined the group, wondering what had happened. Sirius changed back to human form and snatched the map from Harry's hands. Looking at the passageway, then at the map, he motioned Harry to step aside as he moved to stand next to the wall. He stretched his right hand in front of him and pushed his hand firmly against the wall. To the surprise of everyone, his hand went through the wall. The next moment, Harry rushed at the wall, with Draco behind him, but both froze at the sight of Day lying on the floor.

Day laid beside her ripped off clothes with her blood all over her naked body. Her left hand was twisted in the way that indicated that it was likely to be broken. Where her body was not covered with blood they could see bruises forming. Harry pulled off his robe and flung it on top of Day, as he gently picked Day up, trying to ignore the large amount of blood on the floor under his shoes.

"I'll run ahead to the infirmary." Ron shouted, as he left.

"I'll get Dumbledore." Sirius said as he threw the map at Draco and changed back to his dog form and left.

Harry ran out of the room, carrying Day, heading towards the infirmary, hoping that they were not too late to save Day. As the rest of the group left the room behind Harry, Draco looked around for clues as to who was involved in this attack. He saw something gleaming at the corner and walked over to the table there. Recognizing the bloody dagger that was left on the table, he remembered seeing it when Pansy had showed him back in her fifth year. Pansy had said that it was a family heirloom. His face hardened as he realized that the culprit for the disgusting deed was Pansy, and her two henchmen who never left her side were likely to be involved as well. He then turned to leave the room without touching the dagger. On his way out, he saw Day's broken wand on the floor. He picked it up and held it in his hand, directing his anger towards it. He could feel anger and worry from his mind link and the anger directed to the wand became a burst of magical energy. A bright light flashed in the room and the next moment when he looked at the wand, it was a wand that was no longer broken. His eyebrows shot up as he looked at the repaired wand in his hand, and then placed it in his pocket. Looking at the room he numbly wondered if Day was still alive, due to the sheer amount of blood on the floor of the room. Using his own wand he sealed the room against entry on the way out, reminding himself to tell Harry about the wand incident afterwards when things had settled down. As he walked slowly to the infirmary, his mind was filled with murderous tortures for the three disgusting culprits who dared to do this to Harry and his family. He would see to Day, before seeing to the tortures.

***

When Harry reached the infirmary with Day in his arms, he found the nurse Madam Promfrey worriedly waiting at the door for them. She hurried him to place Day on a bed and asked Harry to leave the room, so that she could do a documentation of the injuries. From the descriptions that Ron gave, seeing that Day was found naked and injured, it was likely that there was rape and assault involved, so it was now a criminal case. She brought an automatic-writing quill out on a parchment, as she started to give descriptions of the injuries Day had, while she healed her cuts on the body. The quill wrote down every single word she dictated. She then collected bodily fluid as evidence of the rape, as well as for analysis.

While Madam Promfrey was working on Day, Harry went out to the silent group waiting outside. Ginny was crying as Neville was trying to calm her down. Ron was hugging Hermione who seemed to be trembling. Seamus was holding on tightly to Dean's hand as if Dean was going to disappear at any moment. At that moment, Draco entered the infirmary, followed by Professor Dumbledore and Sirius. Draco immediately went to Harry, and pulled Harry to him. Harry tried to blink back his tears as he could not get over the sight of Day lying on the floor all bloody and broken. He told himself that Day needed him to be strong and not to cry for her.

"Do you know who was behind the attack?" Professor Dumbledore asked in a very grave voice.

Harry felt Draco's body stiffen even more if possible as he hissed out what he found. "Parkinson. Crabbe. Goyle. Found a dagger belonging to them that was still in that room."

Dumbledore nodded, looking like he had aged ten years in the past ten minutes and turned back to Sirius. "Sirius, get Severus and Minerva to meet me at the entrance of the Slytherin dorm. Ask Severus to bring some Veritaserum." The dog ran out of the infirmary as Dumbledore left behind it.

It was then that Harry's legs decided to collapse. Draco caught him on the way down and let him sit on a chair behind him. He sat on the arm of the chair brushing Harry's hair to soothe Harry. Using his wand, he muttered a cleaning spell on Harry's bloodstained clothes before leaning his nose against Harry's right temple. He needed to feel Harry near him, otherwise he felt as if he was going to explode at any moment. He could feel Harry trying to comfort him mentally. He briefly wondered if this was going to be how their relationship would be going, by him comforting Harry physically and Harry comforting him mentally.

"It's my fault." Draco said to the silent room. He could feel everyone staring at him.

"How is it your fault?" Neville asked. Ginny had finally stopped crying.

"She defended me on the first day of school. Without me around, Parkinson wouldn't even notice her. It's my fault." Draco said, finally giving up the fight to remain calm as he leant down to place his face at Harry's neck, breathing in his essence. Harry's arms came around him and a tug caused Draco to be seated on Harry's lap as Harry tried to bring himself as close to Draco as possible.

"Then it's my fault too. I knew two years ago that I shouldn't get attached to people as they would be targeted for revenge. It is as much my fault as anyone else." Harry softly said, but in the silent room, it sounded unbearably loud. He gave Draco a soft kiss on his lips.

No one else said anything. Everyone just settled down to wait for Madam Promfrey to finish doing her magic on Day, or for the professors to bring back news on the three Slytherins who were behind the atrocious crime that occurred that night.

Everyone stood up when Madam Promfrey tiredly came out of the room and looked at the eight of them waiting out there. Just then, Professor Dumbledore entered the room with Professor Snape, McGonagall and Lupin, as well as Sirius who immediately went to Harry and Draco.

"Poppy, how is the girl?" Professor Dumbledore asked.

Madam Promfrey held up a piece of parchment. "Thank Merlin they brought her in then. We would have lost her if they had been ten minutes late. She lost a lot of blood from the numerous cuts on her body. Here's a list of injuries she had. She was raped as well. From the sperm sample I collected from her body, the analysis told me that it belongs to two men. I managed to heal the physical injuries, but the mental injuries can only be healed by her own mind. She's still asleep now, from the potions that I gave her."

Snape took the parchment from her and read through it. His face was even paler than before when he finished with the parchment. He passed it to Professor McGonagall who winced at the parchment when reading through it.

Harry didn't like the fact that they were passing the parchment around. _Were they going to pass to us too, like a pass-the-parcel game? This is Day lying inside there._ Harry was starting to find controlling his temper a difficulty. Draco was also getting angry with the professors. He wanted to know what they did to the three animals that did this to Day.

"So are we going to stand here all day so as to examine that list of injuries? If you are really interested, all we had to do was to mutter a little spell and we could project that picture of Day lying there for you all and you can see it in full color instead of reading about it." Draco drawled, glaring at the professors. Snape glared back at Draco as McGonagall seemed insulted and was about to scold Draco for his rudeness. Draco continued on. "So, pray tell me. Where are those three animals now? Have they confessed? Why did they attack Day?"

Dumbledore sighed. "They confessed under Veritaserum. The reasons of the attack were … they were under the orders of Voldemort to kill a good friend of the two of you and she was the only one who was really unprotected and had the tendency of not traveling in groups. She also offended them in the past two months. She was a chaser for the Quidditch team and they wanted Slytherin to win. But the main reason was that Voldemort promised them initiation into the Death-eater circles if they could kill your friend and get away with it."

Both Draco and Harry had their hands clenched. Both were trying to control their tempers upon hearing this. So it was true that it was their fault, isn't it?

Suddenly Hermione realized that the vases in the rooms seemed to be levitating. She saw a chair wobble as it rose two inches above the ground. The tables started to wobble as well. She suddenly gasped, realizing that someone in the room was leaking magic.

"Someone's leaking magic." Hermione said, noticing that Draco and Harry seemed to be trying to control their temper. Guessing that the ones who were leaking magic, she was afraid to approach them, as everyone around them became aware of the intensifying magic currents in the room. Ron's eyes went wide as he wanted to approach the two but was pulled back by Hermione.

Draco knew that both their emotions were disrupting the shared magical pool and if they actually let the magic lose, they might actually blow up the place. He was trying to send comfort waves to Harry, but because his emotions were also very much on the surface, it seemed to be unable to do anything for Harry. He could sense Harry attempting to control his emotions and the magic, and reached his hand out to tug Harry into his arms, as Harry looked at him for help. Looking at the rest of the people standing staring at them, Harry decided that the main thing was to protect them from any magical outburst. He looked back at Draco's eyes and realized that Draco was thinking the same thing. It was as if they knew what each other was thinking. He then used his mind to conjure a protective bubble around Draco and himself. It was like a protective shield spell, but the difference was that Harry did not use his wand to conjure it. He didn't even know the words for the spell. He simply imagined it being there, surrounding Draco and himself, even if they moved about, and both boys slowly sat down on the floor, still holding on to each other's hands. Harry then rested his head on Draco's shoulders and both breathed in deeply, closing their eyes and trying to control their tempers and their magic.

Everyone else in the room was so shocked when they saw the sudden whitish bubble surround the two boys. They then heard the vases and chairs in the room landing softly on the surfaces and realized that the intense magical currents were no longer there. Seamus stretched his hand out to the bubble and realized that his hand could not even move any part of the bubble. He turned to stare at the others, whose faces except Dumbledore's showed astonishment.

Hermione exclaimed, pointing at them. "That was… he didn't even touch his wand… he… shouldn't even know the spell… we don't learn magical protective shielding in classes here. Much less in the bubble form. And that amount of magic. They were levitating everything." Her eyes were so huge that they looked like they were going to pop out.

Dumbledore smiled. "Miss Granger, calm yourself. It's not that hard to understand, given who they were. And all wizards can perform some wandless magic. It's not impossible."

Hermione breathed in deeply and blushed, realizing that she just lost her composure in front of professors. She nodded, but remained staring fascinated at the whitish bubble and the two wizards in it.

"Albus, it's true that everyone can do some wandless magic. But shielding spells! They are so advanced and even normal Aurors had trouble casting it with their wands sometimes. I myself have never heard of a shield in the bubble form." McGonagall asked.

Suddenly the bubble disappeared and Draco's voice floated up to her. "All it meant was that we are likely to be good Aurors that's all. Sorry we almost lost control." Harry stood up and pulled Draco up. Both of them looked like they were back to normal.

"So what's going to happen to those three?" Harry asked.

"They are being locked up in different rooms at the moment and had been given potions to sleep till tomorrow morning. We would arrange for a Ministry worker to be here in the morning. However, because they are under-aged, it is unlikely that they will end up in Azkaban. The recently implemented punishment was that they serve in the muggle prison after they had their magical powers stripped from them. They don't know about that yet. They were told by Voldemort that we could not do anything to them because they are too young. We'll have to make other sleeping arrangements for her. Remus, can you go up to their dorm and add one more bed? I think it's better for her to be protected now, better late than never." Dumbledore sighed.

Draco sighed. "We really can't do anything else worse than that? I want to dig their black hearts out with a spoon." Draco pouted.

"I'll join you." Ron seconded.

"Me three." Seamus exclaimed.

"Me four." Dean said.

"Me five." Neville answered.

"You guys are corrupting Neville. He's turning violent." Harry exclaimed in exasperation. Everyone chuckled as the atmosphere in the infirmary became lighter. "Seriously, I rather spend my energy on Day when she wakes up and seek my revenge in the Quidditch match against Slytherin. I don't care. We're winning that Quidditch Cup for Day." Ron nodded.

"Why don't you all go back to your dorm to sleep? It's quite late already." McGonagall commented.

"Madam Promfrey, what time will Day wake up? I want to be here when she does." Harry asked.

Madam Promfrey answered. "Well, the potion should allow her to sleep till noon tomorrow. But I got to warn you. Some rape victims are very sensitive to the people around her. So she may… "

Draco cut in. "All we want is to be her support system when she wakes up. If she didn't want us there, we'll get the hell out of here. We just don't want her to wake up alone after the trauma she went through." Harry pleaded with Madam Promfrey with his eyes, till finally she nodded and shooed them out of the infirmary.

Everyone went back to their rooms and with a depressed air got ready for bed. Harry laid down in his bed for a moment, before getting up with his wand. He went to Draco's bed and crawled in, as Draco shifted nearer to the wall. Harry then set the alarm for the next morning and laid on his back, staring up at the starlit canopy. Draco sighed beside him, cast a silencing spell and turned to stare at Harry's face.

"I need to tell you something." He waited for Harry to turn his eyes to him before continuing. "Just now, when I saw Day's broken wand on the floor of that room, I picked it up. We both were angry and I sort of directed my anger at the wand. All a sudden there was a flash of light and this was in my hand." Draco held out Day's repaired wand for Harry to see.

Harry's eyebrows went up. "You repaired it? Hmmm… just like just now when I wanted to protect everyone else in case we destroy the place with our lack of control. All I did was imagining the bubble surrounding us, locking the power within the bubble like a magical shield and it just happened."

Draco smiled. "Somehow, I think we discovered our newest power. Maybe we should get Dumbledore to teach us wandless magic." Harry nodded as he relaxed onto the bed. He closed his eyes and could feel Draco doing the same, as both drifted to sleep after the long day. They would need the energy to deal with tomorrow.

***

Harry's eyes fluttered open, keeping his body immobile. He could sense from his link that Draco was still asleep, and he didn't want to physically wake him up yet. Looking at the blur in front of him, he realized that the past two months of frequently sleeping together beside each other had made the two of them used to each other in bed. They had fallen asleep the previous night just lying next to each other on the bed, but during the night, they had searched out each other in the centre of the bed. Harry was lying on his side, facing Draco when he woke up. Draco's face was leaning on Harry's shoulder and his hand was gently on Harry's hips. Their legs were entwined. Harry slowly reached up above the pillow and placed his glasses on his nose. Looking down at Draco's sleeping face, he smiled as he marveled at the fact that someone so good looking was lying beside him. He patiently waited for Draco to wake up, as experience told him that Draco would sense him awake and follow him into the awaken world soon.

Ten minutes later, Draco finally gave visible signs that he was awake, even though Harry sensed it five minutes ago. Harry playfully pushed Draco onto his back, as he was still unwilling to face the outside world yet. The fact that his wand had not buzzed yet meant that it was still early. He placed himself on top of Draco as he slightly nuzzled his neck. Draco blinked his eyes open as his hand came up behind Harry's back.

"Morning." Draco huskily smiled down at Harry. Harry stuck out his tongue and lazily traced patterns on his neck, making him breathe in deeply at the sensation. Harry then single-handedly unbuttoned the shirt of Draco's black silk pajamas, teasingly brushing his hand on Draco's skin at times, as he continued to lick Draco's neck. Finally when the shirt was open, he pulled back and looked at Draco, while still leaning his lower body on Draco. No matter how often he saw Draco's shirt off, he was always struck by the fact that Draco looked beautiful. Especially early in the morning when Draco's hair was messy and he was smiling sleepily up at him. Draco often felt that his body had been damaged, due to the fact that the beatings he had gotten from his father left scars on his back. Harry could remember the first time he saw those scars, after finally persuading Draco to take off his shirt, and how he had nearly wept from seeing them. They were ugly, as line scars showed that his father not only beat him, he whipped him. However, in Harry's mind, those scars were beautiful, because he had survived them. After he saw them that first time, he had kissed the scars and used his tongue to lick them, cherishing them as a part of Draco. Draco had broken down in tears from Harry's actions. Now, as he looked at Draco, he was amazed that both of them had survived till they were so old.

He felt Draco's hand coming up to caress his cheek, as he looked at him. Looking into his grey eyes, he lowered his mouth to Draco's left nipple, till he was hovering one inch above it. He softly blew over it, seeing the muscle under it tighten. He then heard Draco whimper, before sucking his nipple into his mouth, his teeth tugging lightly on it. Draco arched his chest up in pleasure.

He continued doing it to Draco, before switching to the other nipple. Looking up at Draco's flushed face and feeling Draco writhe under him, he brought himself up above Draco's face and kissed his mouth. He opened his mouth and welcomed Draco into his mouth. He then placed his lower body against that of Draco's and… rubbed against him. Draco moaned into the kiss as his right hand searched out Harry's fingers and held tightly, as he started rubbing himself back against Harry, moaning as their erections rubbed against each other over layers of cloth, bringing pleasure to both boys. Harry stopped kissing him and brought his lips to the hickey he left on Draco's neck the previous day and sucked hard, as Draco rubbed back at him even more frantically. After some more rocking their bodies together, Harry brought his mouth to Draco's ear and whispered "Now" as he sent a wave of love through their mind link. It was the softly spoken command and the feeling of love washing over his body that made Draco release, allowing his body to explode in ecstasy. His release was carried over the mind link and Harry reached the peak at the same time.

It was a while before Harry finally rolled off Draco. Looking at Draco smiling at him, he couldn't help returning the smile. "Morning." He muttered, as he bent in to give Draco a peck on his forehead, and muttered a cleaning spell over the wet area on the groin area of both of them.

"I think we should sleep together more often. I definitely like the waking up part." Draco smirked at Harry.

Harry deftly buttoned Draco's shirt till he looked decent, before answering, "But I don't want to be predictable." He then left the bed, hearing Draco chuckle.

***

Her eyes fluttered open, staring at the white ceiling above her. The last thing she remembered was… pain. She turned her head when she felt someone staring at her, and found two pairs of eyes intently looking at her.

She saw Harry and Draco sitting at the edge of the next bed. They knew that she was awake, but her awakening did not cause them to hover around her. She frowned. It was not the first time she had landed in the infirmary, as Quidditch players had higher injury rates than normal students. Previous experience told her that when you were a patient, when you first wake up from your injuries, your friends hovered over you like you were their injured pet. Frowning, she didn't remember any Quidditch matches that caused her to be in the infirmary.

"What… happened?"

The two boys looked a little ill at the thought that they had to tell her the reason she was there. They exchanged glances and finally looked at her again. It was Draco who answered her question.

"You were attacked by Parkinson, Crabbe and Goyle."

Suddenly, flashes of what happened replayed in front of Day. It was as if the pain she had endured caused the painful memories to be locked away till Draco uttered the words. Her body stiffened as Day gave a whimper. The pain she remembered hit her as if her cuts were still unhealed. Day panted as she suddenly remembered what happened. When she looked up at the two boys with tears in her eyes, she suddenly understood why they were sitting so far away. Both of them had scrambled off the bed and looking at her with worry in their eyes, as she looked like she was going through a seizure.

"It… hurts."

With these words, her tears fell as she twisted her aching body till she was lying on her side facing them and curled her body up. Harry's eyes filled with tears as he looked at her. Even Draco's eyes seemed a little wet. Both were silently blaming themselves for causing her pain.

"Is that why… you are not willing to come near me? Because… I'm dirty?" Day looked up at them.

Draco breathed in deeply, trying to control himself when he heard the words that Day said. His eyes had went wide, at the thought that the girl thought that… she thought that they didn't want to be near her! All Harry did was kneel down next to her face, took her fingers in his palm and give her a soft kiss on her forehead.

"Don't be silly. We thought that… you may not want us near as… we are guys and… Merlin, I'm so sorry. It's our entire fault that they went after you…" Harry leant his forehead against her forehead and let the tears fall.

Draco took Day's other hand and lifted it up to his cheek, brushing the back of her hand with his cheek. "We'll never think that you are dirty. Just because that happened to you did not mean that YOU are the one at fault. It's THEM who are at fault. Not you. Remember what we said? We'll never leave you alone for the rest of your life even if you are tired of us."

Day chuckled tearfully, before starting to sob. All the two boys did was hold on to her hands and trying to comfort her with their presence.

When Day finally calmed down from her sobbing, she looked up at the two boys who had been patiently waiting for her to stop crying, although Harry cried a little with her. She gave them tearful smiles as Draco tried to wipe her tears away with a hankerchief and Harry tried to get her to lay on her back so that any injuries that had not been fully healed would not be aggravated.

"So how did you guys find me?" Day asked.

"I wanted to talk to you yesterday, remember? When it was eleven o'clock and you were not back from your detention, we got worried. Then there was this special map that showed the whole of Hogwarts and the position of the people in the castle as well. We checked it and… found that you seemed to be injured. We rushed out of the dorms like a herd of bulls after us, as all eight of us came out to search for you. And then, when we found you…" Draco broke off, as the sight of Day lying there all bloody flashed in front of his eyes.

"I carried you to the infirmary. Madam Promfrey said that if it was ten minutes more we would have lost you due to blood loss. Draco found the dagger they used and recognized it belonging to Parkinson. Then Professor Dumbledore took those three and made them confess using truth potion. They are too young for Azkaban, but they are going to be stripped of their magic and sent to muggle prison. You won't ever see them again. They are going to be announcing it during dinner later, not mentioning the victim's name." Harry continued.

Day nodded. "I don't really remember that much… Parkinson cut me so many times that all I felt was the pain. Then I think she said that Crabbe won a bet and could be the first to… you know. And all I remembered before fainting from the pain was that he… started to…" Day could not really go on. One thing good about her fainting then was that she couldn't remember the process of the rape, and mentally could just push it aside for a while, as she had to deal with the memory of the pain first. She then patted the spaces beside her. "Want to sit down? You can't possible stand the entire time you are here."

Both boys frowned at her, before Harry ventured to sit down beside her. Both of them were looking at her as if she was going scream any moment. Then Day realized what the problem was. "You thought I'm going to scream bloody murder because you two are guys huh? In the first place I can't really remember much about… you know… all I really could recall was the first part. And somehow," she smiled up at the two of them, "I had the gut feeling that you two are not going to harm me. And I've always had a good judgment of people. Are you two the only visitors I have?"

Both boys smiled at her. "The whole gang's outside. I'll get them if you okay it." Draco said. Day nodded and Draco left the room. Day then realized that Harry was still holding on to her hand, and was unconsciously brushing her knuckles with his thumb, as if he was trying to ensure that she was there. She must have scared him badly the previous night. Day had read psychological books on rape victims before, and most of them described them as women who could not bear to have people touch them after their trauma. She didn't want that. She wanted to be comforted by the presence of people who cared about her and recover from the experience. She didn't want to be those women who had to bitterly continue their lives. Forgetting the whole thing was impossible, so she would have to deal with it. What more quite a few of her friends are gay. That means that sexually they were not interested in her. And she knew that her friends would never want to harm her, especially the group who patiently waited for her to wake up today and were currently entering the room behind Draco.

She suddenly saw a flash of black and saw a large furry dog barking his greeting, while placing his front paws on the bed beside her shoulder. She reached out the hand that was not held by Harry, and scratched behind the furry ears. "Hey, Snuffles. Were you waiting outside for me too?" Snuffles barked once.

"That mutt had been pestering me to bring him to the infirmary. I brought him here and found the others outside. Hope you don't mind me here." Professor Lupin said hesitantly. Day gave him a small smile and greeted the rest. Hermione and Ginny rushed up to hug her, and both burst into tears. The others who were males sighed helplessly as Day patted the two crying girls on the back trying to soothe them, while the two girls were muttering about how good it was that Day was okay and how sorry they were for her and all. When they finally calmed down, they were peeled off Day by their boyfriends who were sending apologetic looks to Day. Day's reply was a smile at the two of them. For the rest of the hour, everyone was chatting with Day regarding unimportant things, till Madam Promfrey came to chase all the visitors out, saying that she needed the rest to recover from the blood loss. All of them left the room, promising to visit her when they were free. They went back to their dorm, silently promising themselves that they would give all the help Day required for the next few weeks.

***

Professor Dumbledore looked up at the students who had seated themselves at their house tables, frowning when the food did not appear on time. It was times like this when he wished that he was not the headmaster of Hogwarts. He loved being around children, but there were some problems that no one was willing to handle, like the announcement that he had to make.

He stood up and raised his hands for silence in the Great Hall. The students quickly quieted down and looked at him. "I know you are all hungry, but there is an announcement I have to make. Last night, we found three students guilty of assault and rape of another student. The three guilty parties are Pansy Parkinson, Gregory Goyle and Vincent Crabbe from Slytherin. Their reason for committing the crime was because they were under the orders of Voldemort to do it. Their punishment was to be stripped of all magical abilities and to be sent to the muggle prison for fifteen years. They have been expelled from Hogwarts and banished by the wizarding laws. I will not tell you who the victim is, but should you happen to know the victim personally, please be kind to the victim as the victim will need your help and understanding in the near future. With this, enjoy your dinner." With that statement, he sat down and food appeared on all the tables. The noise level went up as everyone was discussing about the issue and Blaise and Millicent looked at each other when they realized that they were the only Slytherin seventh years left. They quickly finished their dinner and left the hall as they found that their juniors were curious about their former roommates and made their way to their own dorm room for some peace.

The Gryffindor group ate their dinner slowly. They could hear comments on how their younger housemates always knew that those three people were evil and death-eaters. Harry had to admire Dumbledore for the fact that his announcement was precise and actually did not even give a hint on the gender of the victim. Common sense would make people think straight away that the victim was female, but the fact that Parkinson was also involved made it possible that the victim could be a guy too. However, no guy would really accuse anyone of raping him, for the sake of pride. It would take a while before the rest of the school knew that Day was the victim. The Gryffindor students in Day's year had already been informed of the incident and were told to pretend that the announcement was the first time they heard of it. All of them were sympathetic and promised to help. Day had earlier showed them that she was not so weak as to let this incident make her into one of those psychiatry cases, thus all her friends could do was to stand near her and be there to support her when she needed it.


	12. Wandless Meld

**Chapter 12: Wandless Meld**

Draco stared up at the Quidditch players practicing the Quidditch moves that Ron and he had planned. This was a common scene where Draco would be watching while the others practiced. Ron said that it was to prevent the other Quidditch teams from knowing that Draco had a hand in planning some of the more devious plays, as Gryffindors were supposed to not be devious, according to their reputation. Draco smirked upon recalling the occasion when Ron said this, as Draco had turned disbelieving eyes on Ron for having such a Slytherin suggestion. It seemed that everyone had a little bit of Slytherin in them after all.

Draco then caught sight of Day, who was practicing with Ron, by shooting all sorts of funny goals at him. She had refused to miss any more practices, after lying in the infirmary for three days under Madam Promfrey's naggings. She did agree to going for a few appointments with a mind healer to talk over her trauma, so that she could sleep better at night. When she was finally released from the infirmary, Draco and Harry were waiting for her to bring her to her new room. It was lunchtime and thus the common room was empty, and she didn't have to face anyone whom she was not ready to face yet. She went upstairs with the two boys, and they introduced her to Marcus, and told her the password. They then entered the Study area, where there was an additional table with Day's things on it, which Ginny and Hermione had made the trip to Day's previous room to move them up. They also moved her clothes and personal stuff into the closet beside the new bed in the girls' room. Day was fascinated with the place, as well as with the Marauder's Map. Later in the evening, when Draco and Harry had gone up to the dorm to pick her up for dinner, they found her sitting at a corner of the common room talking to Headless Nick, who was telling Day about the adventures he had while he was alive. Both of them were amused by the fact that when Day was bored, she would even attempt talking to the castle ghosts. However, no matter how Day said that she wanted to be strong after the ordeal, Draco noticed in the next few days that whenever she was in a place with too many people, she would be more tense than normal and that when her friends from her year greeted her, she would shy away from contact if possible and only allow the group that she shared her room with to touch and be close to her. Even within the eight of them, people like Neville and Ron were trying to give her space and Dean and Seamus were always clinging on to each other. Ginny and Hermione were not the type who went around touching people, and thus the only people who really touched Day were actually just Harry and Draco. Draco was glad that Day trusted the two of them, but it was actually unhealthy for her. He sighed, as he presumed that he had to give Day time for her to get used to everything. After all, it had only been a week since the attack had happened, and hopefully the appointments with the mind healer would start to help her soon.

What were troubling them more were the nightmares that Day was having. Ginny came into the boys' room in the middle of Thursday night in a hurry, waking both Draco and Harry, telling them that Day was in the middle of a nightmare and the two girls could not wake her up. The two boys rushed into the girls' room, and saw Day writhing on the bed in agony, trying to curl herself up to protect her body from pain. Both boys held her down and tried to calm her as they tried to make her open her eyes. When she finally opened her eyes, her eyes were glazed from the pain of her nightmare and she blinked when she realized that she was on a bed, not back in that room where she was being tortured. Her tears fell as she nuzzled into Draco's neck. Draco sighed as he scoped Day up in his arms and made his way back to his bed. Day spent the rest of that night in Draco's bed. The next night was no different, but this time it was Harry who brought her back to his bed. Draco wondered what would happen tonight. _Maybe both of us should just sleep with her tonight_ , Draco sighed.

Draco suddenly heard a scraping sound of someone sitting down behind him. He casually turned his head to see who it was. He was surprised to see Blaise sitting behind him, looking at the Gryffindor Quidditch players. Draco then lifted his eyebrow in greeting when Blaise finally turned to meet his eyes.

"Who was it?" Blaise asked.

Draco knew what Blaise was referring to but he decided not to give a direct answer. He needed to know the reason why Blaise was asking before giving the answer. "Who was what?"

Blaise looked at Draco, trying to read his face. However, years of being a Slytherin and a Malfoy had taught Draco ways of hiding his thoughts. The only person he actually showed all his emotions to recently was Harry. Blaise sighed. "The girl who Crabbe and Goyle raped."

Draco stared back at Blaise. "What makes you think it's a girl?"

"Because those idiots are not gay."

"You don't have to be gay to rape a guy."

"Fine. Who's the PERSON those two raped?"

"What makes you think I know?"

"Because you are with Potter. And Potter always knows when things happen." Blaise huffed with exasperation.

"Even if he does know, it doesn't mean he would tell me."

"But you are his boyfriend. He's a Gryffindor. Gryffindors tell their boyfriends everything."

"Even if he tells me, why should I tell you?"

Silence reigned as the two stared at each other.

"Why do you want to know?" A voice came from the side. Both of them turned to face Day who was hovering near the two on her broomstick. "I ask again, why do you want to know?" Day asked, staring at Blaise, as she landed on the stands and got off her broomstick, sitting down beside Draco. Draco passed her a towel and a water tumbler. He then stared at her, noticing from the corner of his eye that Blaise was staring at her too. She just drank from the tumbler in cool composure as she waited for his answer. She finally turned back to stare at Blaise.

"I want to apologize to that person. I saw those two come back into the dorm room with blood on their robes. I asked them about it but all they did was laughed and got ready for bed. I couldn't sleep, and lay awake wondering what they did. About forty-five minutes later, Dumbledore and Snape came into the room and stunned the two of them. When I heard what they did the next day, I realized that if I reported them earlier then the person would be found earlier." Blaise replied.

Day stared at Blaise's eyes, trying to determine if he was sincere in his apology. It was true that Blaise did not really do his prefect duty by reporting it, but as a Slytherin, and what Draco had told her about being a Slytherin, she could hardly blame him for his actions. Especially if you knew that those two have connections with the dark lord, then all the more you have to take care in what you report. Finally seeing the sincerity in his eyes and that Draco actually mentioned before that Blaise was actually quite a nice chap, she decided to tell him.

"I accept your apology." Blaise's eyes went wide as he suddenly understood the implication behind the statement.

"It was… you?" Day nodded to his question, picked up her broom, ruffled Draco's hair and making Draco scowl at her, and ran towards the team who was gathering at a corner of the pitch for instructions from the Captain.

Silence reigned again at the stands where the two boys were sitting as both sat back to watch the team practice, with a pair of brown eyes staring at a particular chaser with a tinge of admiration in his eyes.

***

Draco and Harry walked down the corridor to the room they had been using for Transfiguration that Saturday afternoon after the Quidditch practice. They had privately talked to Professor Dumbledore the day after Day's attack about their sudden ability to do wandless magic and Professor Dumbledore had asked them if they wanted to add another practice session on Saturday so that he could teach them some simple wandless magic.

As they entered the room, they saw Dumbledore, Sirius and Remus, before the door of the room flew shut, with a wave of Dumbledore's hand. For fun, Harry waved his hand at the door, mentally saying 'alohomora', and the door flew open. Cheekily, Draco followed him by waving his hand and the door flew shut again. They turned back to the three adults currently standing in the room with grins on their faces.

Sirius, having changed back, grinned at the two boys. "Show off. So what if you can do it without a wand? You have to make sure that the wandless spells are some that can ensure your safety, not just a simple unlocking or locking charm that any first years know."

"We need to test the extent of your powers. How deep is the connection between the two of you?" Dumbledore asked with twinkling eyes, making Draco, Harry and Remus blushed with the direct question. Sirius only continued to grin at them.

"Um… we … haven't… you know…" Harry answered, blushing even redder as he looked down at the floor.

Sirius stopped grinning and blinked at the two boys, stunned. "But… you guys had been together for…" He stopped, trying to mentally count the time the two boys were together.

"Two months. Obviously, Draco isn't a frisky dog like you." Remus teased his boyfriend. This time it was Sirius who blushed as the two boys grinned at his embarrassment. "But seeing that the emotional link have developed into the ability to do some wandless magic, it shows that your magic is melding more completely. Take your time with the relationship thing. But let us just see what other spells you can do without the wand."

For the next two hours, they revised through the spells they learnt in their first, second and third years. It seemed that both of them were quite proficient with doing the simple everyday spells.

At the end of the two hours, the two boys were starting to be exhausted, as doing wandless spell was actually tapping into the raw magical power between them and the strain was starting to show on their faces. Finally they stopped and the two boys collapsed at a corner of the room on the floor, leaning against the wall, resting as they felt the drain of power.

Suddenly, Sirius raised his wand and pointed towards the two boys, and shouted "Stupify!"

The two boys saw the spell leave Sirius' wand and fly in their direction. At that moment it was as if time slowed down, as Harry mentally constructed an invisible wall in front of both of them and Draco poured a little power into that wall to make sure that the wall would not allow the spell through. For fun, Draco changed the outer texture of the wall to an absorbing texture to see what happened when the spell hit the wall. Both boys stared at the spell zooming towards them, waiting for the spell to hit the wall.

To the three adults in the room, it seemed as if the boys were just waiting for the spell to hit them. Suddenly the spell hit the space about a meter in front of the boys and disappeared into nothing. Both boys then grinned as they saw that the wall stopped the spell. Draco's change of the texture of the wall caused the wall to absorb the power of the spell and since the shield was still linked to their magical powers, they could feel that small amount of power making its way to their power pool. They looked at each other when they realized the potential of the wall they have constructed together. If they were actually attacked at all sides, the type of wall they had just constructed would not only prevent the spells from reaching them, it would absorbed the energy of the spells and actually become their own energy.

"What happened to the spell?" Sirius said. Draco explained what happened as the two boys got up from the floor. When they finished explaining, Sirius and Remus were astonished. "What made you change the texture?"

Draco smiled at the black-haired man. "For fun. Harry constructed a similar wall at the infirmary a week ago. So I was thinking that if the texture could be converted to other types of texture, then it would be interesting. It would be good if we actually change the inner texture to such that it protects us but does not stop our own spells from going out. That way it would be effective against people attacking us."

"And seeing that you two were seekers on your teams, the past years had trained you with good reflexes. The wall was constructed without muttering the spell mentally but by imagining. Maybe the next session will be on which spells you can do just by imagining it." Dumbledore smiled. "Now, show our dear Professor Lupin what you two have accomplished in your Advanced Transfiguration lessons. Sirius, did you tell Remus their forms?" Sirius shook his head, shooting a grin in the directions of the two black panthers in front of them, while staring at Remus' astonished face.

"Oh, Merlin… your two are beautiful." Remus couldn't bring his eyes to leave the two panthers who lazily strolled towards Remus. Remus squatted down, as the two panthers stopped in front of him. The green-eyed panther nuzzled Remus' hand while the silver-eyed panther sat itself down contently to clean itself, keeping an eye on its mate whom was being scratched behind its ears by Remus. Finally Dumbledore gave the two panthers the signal to change back and the green-eyed panther walked towards its mate and both changed back in the process of Harry pulling Draco up from the floor. The door then flew open as the two boys left for the Gryffindor tower, as the door closed behind them.

The three remaining people stared at the closed door. "You know what the really amazing part is? The two of them did the spells and transformations in perfect coordination, without any talking. I know that they have a mind link, but it's only emotions. How did they do that?" Remus said, turning to Dumbledore, as Sirius changed back to his dog form.

Dumbledore shook his head. "That's why it is so amazing to be able to see the transition from normal seventh years to powerful wizards. And that's why I love being a headmaster." He smiled as he left the room, leaving behind a thoughtful werewolf and an equally thoughtful dog.

***

"Hey Harry, Draco, back from your extra lessons?" Ron greeted them as the portrait of the Fat Lady flew open. Both the exhausted boys collapsed on the couch next to the red-headed boy and sighed. "That bad huh?"

"It's not that bad. Just exhausting, because of it being after Quidditch practice. And I guess the extra load of specialization is driving both of us haggard. Where's Herm?" Harry replied with his eyes closed. The rest of the people in their room only knew that the extra lessons were for Transfiguration, but had no idea that they were actually learning to become an animagus and casting wandless spells. That was to prevent the leakage of information about their abilities to defend themselves against Voldemort.

"She went to the library an hour ago with Nev and Gin. She needed some books for her Arithmancy extra credit work. Although I wonder why she actually does those assignments for, knowing that she's going to get at least a hundred and fifty percent for that subject." Ron shook his head.

"Don't bother. She's Hermione. If she isn't nagging all of us about homework and study, then there is something wrong." Draco answered.

Just then the portrait flew open, and Hermione, Neville, Ginny and Day scrambled into the Gryffindor common room, with Neville carrying three thick books. He dumped them on the table in front of the three seated boys and collapsed beside Draco, while pulling Ginny to sit on his lap. Hermione immediately settled down on the floor in front of the pile of books and lifted the first book onto her lap. She opened the book and within five seconds was lost in the wonders of that particular book, while the people sitting on the couch stared at her. Day sat down beside Hermione and with a bored look on her face, took the next book from the pile and started flipping through the book. The people seated then turned their eyes to her.

Draco poked Day's knee with his right leg. "You borrowed that book?"

Day looked up. "Nope. There's nothing to do. I finished my homework for the next two weeks, so I thought maybe I'll just flip through this. I was thinking of specializing in Arithmancy next year so I'll just see if it's okay or not." She went back to the book. All this while Hermione did not look up from the huge book in her lap, lost in the wonders of Arithmancy.

The others all gazed at Day for a moment, before Ginny quietly said, "We are a weird bunch huh?"

Neville nodded, as Ron went back to his DADA essay that was due three days ago, and both Harry and Draco closed their eyes and rested their heads against the back of the couch. Their hands drifted towards each other and clasped together as they relaxed in the cozy common room, in the midst of their friends.

***

Harry woke up to the slight dipping of the bed. His eyes remained closed even though his body unconsciously tensed up. All he could hear was silence… till there was another slight dipping of the bed again. He opened his eyes slightly and saw that it was Day trying to crawl out of the bed that all three of them had shared the night before. She had chosen to sleep on the innermost side of the bed with Draco in the middle, and she was currently trying to crawl out of bed without waking the other two boys up. Harry shifted his leg slightly and Day froze, her eyes darting up to Harry's eyes. She then relaxed when she saw his open eyes. He gave her a nod and moved his legs for her to move out of the bed easier.

"Morning." Day whispered. "I woke up. It's six. You two continue to sleep. I'll make sure no one disturb you." Day knew that the two boys normally spent Sunday mornings together in bed. She gave Harry a grin and scuttled off to her room.

Harry made sure the bed curtains were closed properly before waving his hand, casting a locking, repelling and silencing spell. He then turned to his right, staring at the blond boy who was lying curled up beside him. He shifted slightly so that he was facing Draco and closed his eyes to rest. He could tell that Draco was going to wake up soon. Maybe it was due to the terror of being hunted by an evil overlord, that the two of them never needed much sleep at night. Ron used to wonder how they could wake up that early in the morning as Ron normally needed Hermione to literally drag him out of bed. Feeling Draco's affection over their link was Draco's way of greeting him every morning and he now felt a familiar wave of affection wash over him as his arms tightened slightly around Draco. Draco's head was conveniently tucked under Harry's chin as Harry felt Draco plant a soft kiss on his collarbone exposed by the neckline of his pajamas.

Draco pulled back from Harry and Harry looked at Draco's mercury glazed eyes. Harry breathed in deeply as he realized that Draco looked especially sexy that morning with his glazed eyes seemingly giving a come-hither look. Draco then licked his lips slowly and Harry felt a wave of arousal washing over his entire body, as blood flowed south. He slowly shifted his body till he was positioned above Draco, with the silvery blond looking up dreamily at him. In the past two months, the two boys had become quite familiar with each other's bodies during their heavy petting sessions. They found out what each like the other to do to them as well. Harry found out that for someone who was so in control of his emotions in public, Draco seemed to be totally open to him, especially during the time when they were alone together. Draco also preferred Harry to be the dominant one in the relationship. Maybe because he liked losing control to Harry, and to truly belong to another person. Harry had not been in much control of many aspects of his life and thus did not mind being the dominant one in the sexual aspect of the relationship, even if very often, it was Draco who started the ball rolling.

Harry leant down and kissed Draco, gently sliding his tongue into Draco's mouth as Draco brought his tongue to trace Harry's invading tongue. Harry's hand started to slowly unbutton Draco's top as Draco's fingers also got to work on Harry's top. Draco then pushed Harry's top off as Harry moved his mouth to drop light kisses on Draco's neck. Draco's hand then moved to the waistband of Harry's pants, pushing it over Harry's hips as he moaned softly to Harry's administration of his tongue which was moving down to his nipples. Harry kicked his pants aside and moved his hands to Draco's waistband, as Draco lifted his hips to assist him. Harry then pulled both Draco's pajamas pants and his boxers down, past his hops, knees and legs and threw them aside. Harry then pulled back from Draco and looked at Draco lying there, still wearing the unbuttoned black silk shirt which was in sharp contrast with his beautiful and naked body.

Harry then slowly brought his right index finger up to Draco's forehead and rested the finger in the centre of his forehead. Looking deep into Draco's eyes, he slowly brought his finger down the bridge of Draco's aristocratic nose, brushing Draco's skin lightly. He then used his finger to lightly trace Draco's eyes, which fluttered shut at the sensation of finger touching skin. Harry then lightly traced Draco's upper lip. Draco looked up at Harry and suddenly tilted his face up slightly, catching Harry's finger with his lips and such it into his mouth. Looking at the way Draco was sucking his finger made Harry's imagination run wild, as his eyes stared at Draco's lips and the look of lust he could see on Draco's face. Finally he pulled his finger out of Draco's mouth and the slightly wet finger went to the edge of Draco's jaw and continued down his neck, which Draco tilted to allow Harry freedom to do whatever he wanted. The finger then slowly ventured down Draco's chest, tracing a few rounds over each of Draco's erect nipples, causing Draco to moan softly and arched his chest up a little to feel more. Harry's finger made the walk south on Draco's body, towards Draco's belly button. Harry traced it lightly a few times, as Draco wondered where the next destination of the finger was, with arousal and anticipation.

Finally the finger stopped before touching Draco's erection. Draco whimpered and looked up at Harry, who was grinning.

"What do you want?" Harry softly asked.

Draco frowned.

"Tell me."

Draco panted with arousal. "Touch me."

"I am." Harry continued grinning, not moving his finger at all, as it was just lightly touching Draco's skin, so near to where Draco wanted desperately to be touched by his love.

Draco growled. "Touch my cock." He whispered.

Harry did not want to torture Draco anymore. He lightly brushed Draco's erection with the tip of his finger, making Draco moan, as his eyes closed with the onslaught of the pleasure brought on by that sensation. Harry caressed the whole of Draco's erection, pleasing Draco with the light yet erotic touch, as Draco's hands clenched at the bedsheets. He could see his love getting nearer and nearer to the edge with his actions. When Draco was finally perched at the very edge of his peak, Harry quickly brought his finger down to the small patch of skin under Draco's balls and poked it suddenly with his finger, while he bent down and sucked Draco's cock into his mouth. The sensation of being touched at that sensitive place as well as his cock suddenly being surrounded by moist warmth sent Draco screaming as he reached his peak and came in Harry's mouth.

When Draco finally came back to himself, he looked down at Harry who was laying his head on Draco's stomach waiting for him to recover from his pleasure. Harry smiled and leant up to give Draco a deep kiss. Draco could feel a faint taste of himself in Harry's mouth, as he felt himself stirring again. They broke the kiss and Draco looked up at Harry.

"Harry, I need to tell you something."

Harry frowned, nodding his head indicating him to continue.

"I told you I lost my virginity already. It's true but… I've… never been… taken before. I… I want you to take me. I want to belong to you completely." Draco said softly.

Harry's eyes went wide as he realized the implications of what Draco just said. "Dray… I… It's going to hurt a bit…" Draco nodded and pulled Harry down to kiss him again, as his hands went to Harry's boxers to get rid of it. His hands then moved to clasp Harry's hard-on as Harry arched his neck, whimpering at his lover's caress. He quickly pulled Draco's hands away and Draco pouted up at him.

"Any more I would have lost control." Harry answered the unspoken question and pushed Draco to lay flat on his back, as Harry lifted Draco's legs for easy assess. Covering Draco's crevice lightly with his hand, he mentally used a lubricating spell and Draco gasped as he felt himself being lubricated, leaving him with a cold feeling. Harry then used the spell on his index finger and brought it down against the puckered ring. Bringing his lips to Draco's and kissing him, he slowly pushed his finger against the hole and felt Draco relax himself to allow his finger to slip into the tight knot of muscle. Draco breathed out as he felt Harry's finger enter him and Harry slowly slid his finger in and out, letting Draco get use to the thickness of his finger. Under Harry's mouth, Draco was whimpering at the sensation Harry gave him with his finger. Suddenly, without giving Draco much notice, Harry started to insert a second finger together with his index finger. Then a third finger was inserted. When Harry finally inserted four fingers into Draco, Draco was writhing under Harry, as his moans and groans were muffled by Harry's lips and his fingers lightly brush against a certain point inside of Draco.

Harry then mentally used the lubricating spell on his own hard-on and withdrew his fingers, while lining his cock up at the hole. Draco moaned when he realized that Harry was finally going to enter him, and relaxed himself, lifting his knees to his chest as much as possible, so as to make it easier for Harry to enter him. Harry slowly pushed the head of his cock into Draco's ass, and then found himself sinking into Draco's warmth, as his cock was being gripped by Draco's muscle. When he was fully in Draco, he paused, staring down into Draco's eyes, with love twinkling down at Draco from his eyes. Draco never felt more complete and content as in that moment, and he pulled Harry down to kiss him again. Harry then started to move within Draco, stroking Draco's desire as both of them moaned from the pleasure of the action. Tanned and pale skin became slick with the perspiration from their actions as both of them became more and more frenzied for the peak of the pleasure.

What they did not notice was that while they were making love, the two of them started glowing. All the two of them were conscious of were the pleasure each gave to the other and when Draco could open his eyes to focus on Harry during the rocking and stroking of their bodies, all he noticed was how sexy Harry looked with that love shinning from his eyes and his black hair was being messy from the rocking, with his enchanted starlit canopy as the backdrop for the love-making. Suddenly Harry changes the angle slightly in his thrusting and the pleasure was even more intense than before. Draco could not control himself anymore and at that same moment, Harry also reached his peak. Both of them threw themselves over the cliff of ecstasy so intense that they both blacked out from the sensation.

What the two boys did not notice was that the glowing of their bodies had increased in the last few moments of their love-making and there was a sharp silvery blue flash when both boys came and collapsed into unconsciousness. 

***

Harry looked around him, taking note of his surroundings. He last remembered making love to Draco. _How did he end up in a room with a blue sphere lying in the centre of it?_ He looked down at himself and found that he was dressed in his pajamas. Suddenly he felt fingers sliding into his hand and realized that it was Draco, standing beside him, dressed in his pajamas, frowning around the room.

Suddenly the door opened and a blond man and a black haired man walked in hand-in-hand. They paused at the door, staring at the two boys as the two boys stared back at them. Then the blond man spoke.

"Oh. You are here. We were expecting you but not so early in the morning." He smiled at the two of them as Draco and Harry calmly backed two steps, not knowing who the strangers are. Their bodies tensed up so as to be prepared for anything that might happen.

"You idiot. You are scaring them. Let me introduce this idiot and myself. I'm Godric Gryffindor and this idiot is Salazar Slytherin. Helga Hufflepuff and Rowena Ravenclaw are out wondering now. The four of us are what you termed as the 'guardians' of Hogwarts. We make sure the wards and all are in place and that we alert the correct people when enemies attack. We are a secret that is only revealed to the headmasters of Hogwarts."

"Albus came here one month ago telling us that our heirs are actually soul mates so we were kind of waiting for you two to show up. You really took your time progressing in your relationship huh?" Salazar smirked, as the two boys blushed.

"Why are we here?" Harry asked.

"I guess when you two finally made love, your magic melded so completely that you are able to connect with the innermost magical part of Hogwarts. It just brought you here." Godric replied.

"What is this thing?" Draco finally asked, not being able to contain his curiosity for the glowing blue sphere.

"It's the lodestone in which many of the warding spells of Hogwarts were based on. That's why we have to guard it. It can also warn you when that fake heir attacks Hogwarts. See that golden thread connected to the globe? That thread is connected to Albus, so that when there is an attack, we will send out a warning through that thread and snip it off to prevent people from using that to destroy the stone." Godric answered. The two boys then noticed a thin golden line around the sphere, which was not visible to the eye a moment ago. Both suspected that some one cast an illusion spell to hide the thread and only people who knew about its presence can see it.

"You mean Dumbledore get warning before Voldemort actually reach the Great Hall? Wow, that's useful." Harry gushed.

"Can we do that?" Draco suddenly asked.

Both Salazar and Godric looked at each other in surprise. They had not expected such a request. However thinking about the situation that the two boys were likely to face in the near future, they realized that the same arrangement would benefit the two boys. The two of them then mentally conversed with the two other guardians, who readily agreed, since there was no harm done.

"Okay, request is approved by the other two too. You can attach a thread to the sphere just like Albus did. We'll snip off the thread after sending a warning to you mentally should there be any attacks. Okay?" Godric answered. The two boys nodded and both started to imagine the thread similar to Dumbledore's, till a thin silvery blue thread attaching itself to Dumbledore's thread. Draco did a illusion charm to it so that it would not be discovered.

Looking up at the two guardians, they found them to be smiling. "You two are good at this." Salazar complimented them.

"Yeah. We didn't even need to teach you." Godric answered. The two boys blushed and Harry wondered how they were going to leave. As if Godric could read his mind, he answered. "If you want to leave, you just have to imagine yourself back in your body. Feel free to visit us by imagining yourself down here. It won't happen when you make love again." He grinned. The two boys smiled and waved goodbye to the two guardians and imagined themselves back in their bodies in their room.

All a sudden they were back and they both opened their eyes, staring into each other's eyes. Harry realized that he was lying on Draco and was still in Draco. He withdrew and mentally summoned a warm washcloth as he lovingly cleaned Draco, making sure that his beloved soul mate was not hurt during the love-making. When he was finally assured of Draco's well-being, he finally laid down on the pillow and pulled Draco close to him. Pulling the blanket over their bodies to prevent them from getting a chill, Harry gave Draco a small and chaste kiss on the lips and both boys drifted again into blissful sleep.


	13. The Calm before the Storm

**Chapter 13: The Calm before the Storm**

Draco stared at the mirror as he brushed his teeth. Harry was in the shower cubicle behind him, humming to some tune that Draco had never heard before. He shook his head at how silly Harry could be sometimes. _At least he's not nervous about today's match_ , he thought, as he rinsed his mouth. As he finished cleaning his mouth and washing up, he felt a pair of hands encircle him and saw Harry dropping a kiss onto the back of his neck, his lower body wrapped in a towel.

"Too bad we can't fool around." Harry sighed. Ron had asked Draco how the Slytherin team kept their energy up so as to be so aggressively 'assaulting' their rival teams. Draco had stupidly replied that the rule was a two-day sex abstain enforced before each match so that the players will work their frustrations off during the match itself. Ron, with wide eyes, nodded and called a team meeting, and had a team glaring at him with that announcement. Draco smiled when he remembered how frustrated Seamus was the night before when Dean pushed him out of his bed and made him sleep in his own bed.

"Somehow I think today's game will be quite brutal, even if it is on our side. Even though the Slytherin team found totally unsuitable beaters after those two left. For Merlin's sake, that little squid they found couldn't even beat the bludgers during the first few practices that I watched. The seeker can't even catch golf balls well. I felt sorry for the team." Draco scowled with disgust when he remembered the recent practices that he spied on hiding under Harry's invisibility cloak. It was a complete waste of his time to watch a team suffering from the loss of their two beaters and trying to recover from the loss of their seeker as well.

"It just means an easier victory for us. We may not even use all our good plays and can keep them for the other matches." Harry leaned against the sinks and stretched, blatantly displaying his body for his lover to drool over, which was working as Draco's eyes were glued to his chest and abs when he realized that his lover is nearly naked in front of him, covered with only a skimpy piece of towel around his lower body. Draco's breathing quickened and he licked his lips, as his eyes trailed up to meet Harry's emerald eyes, which were glinting mischievously. Draco's mind went back to the time he woke up after falling asleep from their 'first' bonding …

_Begin flaskback_

_Draco's eyes fluttered open to look at the scenery scene shown by his canopy. Harry was still asleep, with his head on Draco's shoulders. He had never felt so at peace with himself. He briefly wondered about the whereabouts of Day, before his thoughts drifted to the bonding that happened a few hours ago, and the meeting with the founders. Sometimes, even with all the new powers that the two of them are gaining, it was still rather hard to accept that they were the heirs to these great people who built the school. Draco grew up thinking that Harry was special, but he had never ever expected himself to be part of the label of being 'special', even if it is a little known secret._

_Draco then thought back to the last few months that he had spent by Harry's side. They were no doubt the happiest few months of his life, in which he had real friends and people who cared about him around him. However, Draco was not one to believe in the happily ever after, especially with all the training lessons they had been going through. Voldemort had been too quiet, even if the attack on Day just happened. Even Harry had expressed his worries on the issue, as experience told him that Voldemort had been too quiet these few years. There must be a really big attack coming up somewhere. In preparation for it, there were some more planning put in place besides the security measures that Sirius and Remus had told them at the beginning of the term. In the case of an attack on Hogwarts, the nine of them in this specially warded dorm would know what to do. The only problem they would face in view of an attack was where they could go to after leaving Hogwarts._

_Draco finally felt Harry stirring, as brilliant green eyes fluttered open to look into grey mesmerizing eyes, as the two soulmates stared into each others' eyes, conveying love and affection to each other using their mind link. Harry dropped a gentle kiss on Draco's lips and nuzzled his face into Draco's neck._

_Wordlessly, both boys closed their eyes to relax in the calm before the storm that both were certain to be blowing up in the near future._

_End flaskback_

"If I can't have sex, you two can't have sex. Harry, stop displaying yourself and go get yourself dressed. Shoo…" Seamus' frustrated voice brought Draco out of his thoughts as Harry winked at him, while being pushed out of the bathroom by Seamus. Seamus then came back into the sinks and started washing himself up.

"Up so early?" Draco asked casually, as he picked up his towel, walking towards one of the shower cubicles.

"Can't sleep much without Dean, thanks to your big mouth." Seamus growled, with his toothbrush in his mouth, glaring into the mirror at Draco, as he saw Draco grin insolently.

As the water in the shower cubicle started, Seamus looked at the mirror at his own image, as he continued to brush his teeth. His appearance did not change much in the past few months. However, he felt that he seemed to have matured greatly mentally in the past few months. In the previous years, his life in the Gryffindor tower was limited to having fun, studying, bitching about potions lessons, and at the end of the year, maybe there would be an influx of house points earned by some terrifying adventure undergone by some of his housemates, which was happening right under his nose. It was until last year when he realized that his dormmate was not a really normal one, like Dean, but someone who did not go searching for trouble, and attracted trouble like a crazed bludger. He was never so involved with security meetings that Hermione stressed they should have, till a few months ago. The general consensus was that since the adults were not willing to share the information with them, treating them like children, they would come up with additional security measures to ensure their escape should the castle be attacked, and keep the secrets to themselves. Although none of them agreed with the notion of running away, except Draco, they agreed on the importance that their key concern was to stay alive so as to plan and fight a battle on their own terms. The cooperation in the whole group was good as every one knew what they were supposed to do. When Day was brought into the plans, she built up on the cunning component that was more lacking in the planning, even when Draco and Ron were good strategists.

Then his mind turned towards Dean, as his thoughts went to a certain ring pouch in his drawers. He knew that they were only together for a few months, but those few months were the best, especially after these few years as he spent so long pining after Dean. He bought the rings on an impulse when Dean, Neville and Ginny and himself did some shopping under the strict monitoring of Professor Lupin. Dean was at the other end of the shop looking at some leather necklaces when he picked that pair of rings with the professor grinning at him. He came back and was immediately asked by Draco on what he bought, as Draco was famous for having a shopping fetish. When he discreetly shown Draco the rings and told him that he was just waiting for the right moment to give them to Dean, Draco's eyes lit up and he actually hugged Seamus, till Dean and Harry noticed and frowned at them. Seamus quickly slipped the pouch into his pocket. However he had the feeling that Draco told Harry because a few hours later, during dinner, Harry kept looking at him with a joyful grin.

He walked out of the bathroom and saw that Dean was up, as he dropped a kiss on Seamus' forehead when he passed him to go to the bathroom. Seamus shot him a quick grin to tell him wordlessly that he was forgiven for kicking him out of bed the night before. As he changed into his Quidditch robes, his eyes went to his drawer. He opened it and placed the ring pouch into his pocket as well, without wondering why. He just felt that there would be a perfect moment coming up on that day.

When the whole group was ready for breakfast, they all journeyed down to the Great Hall for breakfast, with the Quidditch players dressed in their crimson Quidditch robes. They entered the Hall to cheering from the rest of their house. As Harry sat down, he glanced up to the staff table and the missing black dog and Professor Lupin reminded him that they left the night before on a mission for the headmaster. Since today was a Saturday and the next day was Halloween, with the students returning home on Monday morning, they were able to leave for their mission early. Harry was disappointed that Sirius would have to miss his match, but Dumbledore stressed the importance of leaving early, and Harry had no say in the matter. He just hoped that the two of them were safe on their mission.

As the time neared for the team to go down to the pitch to assemble, the Quidditch players got up from their seat at the house table. Harry had purposely brought two of his Gryffindor scarves, his daily and Quidditch scarves. He stood up and in full view of everyone in the hall, took his daily scarf and placed it around Draco's neck, publicly announcing his claim on the blond. Draco gave him a grin and pulled him down for a fast peck on his lips and a whispered 'good luck, although you don't need it' into his ear.

Nobody saw a discreet nod from a male Slytherin seventh year to a female Gryffindor Qudditch chaser and the answering nod back with a small smile.

***

"… And Harry Potter catches the snitch, finishing this atrocious game at 450-20 with the Gryffindors winning! I'm not putting you down, Harry, but it seems that the team didn't really need the snitch to win! This three-hour game is rather brutal, not because the Slytherins are cheating, but it seemed that the Lions are determined to place all the Slytherin players in the infirmary. The Lions are all hugging their seeker, even their junior team, who were let out to the pitch to play for half an hour just now when Captain Weasley realized that there is no way their team could lose. And they are finally separated from their seeker, who had been on a winning streak since he came to Hogwarts and… do I see their chaser Finnegan heading out to the Gryffindor audience? And he stopped in front of Thomas, his boyfriend of a few months. His team members seemed to realize that something is happening and surrounded him… does anyone have a pair of omniculars? Thank you Professor Dumbledore… and Finnegan is taking something out from his pocket… it looks like… he opened the black thing and … Potter is waving his wand at Finnegan, as he dismounted from his broom in mid-air, it looks like a levitating spell… Finnegan looked like his kneeling down in the air and… good Merlin! He's proposing to Thomas in front of the whole school on the Quidditch pitch! And Thomas is grinning and nodding and pulled Finnegan towards him and they kissed! And… ouch… Professor McGonagall… that hurt! Oh… well, that's the match between Slytherins and Gryffindors and a successful marriage proposal! All the best wishes to the couple and… ouch… yes Professor, I'll shut up now. Quietus."

***

The party in the Gryffindor Tower was harmful to the ears. It was not only a victory party for the Quidditch match but an engagement party for Seamus and Dean as well. Dean was stunned that Seamus pulled such a trick after the match ended and everyone was stunned by the fact that the person who was notorious for playing the field had just proposed to settle down. Draco and Harry were stunned by the spontaneity exhibited by Seamus. Seamus was about to propose on his broomstick when Harry impulsively helped by casting the levitating spell on him so as to allow him to kneel in mid-air. Even Seamus was stunned by how he himself had acted, although he really wanted to spend the rest of his life with Dean. The whole wager of who Seamus would settle down with was settled and Neville came back with 5 pouches of gallons, as most people betted that Seamus would not propose to Dean before graduation. He happily handed the money out to Draco, Harry, Ron, Ginny, and kept the last pouch for himself. All Seamus did was roll his eyes at the smirks that everyone threw him and Dean and pulled Dean up to their dorm room, with a few bottles of butterbeer, with whistles following their exit of the common room.

***

Harry's shirt was unbuttoned as a half-naked Draco was in his lap, sucking at a particular part of his neck. Harry's head was thrown back against the couch of their study area as he moaned to the sensation of Draco's hand in his unzipped jeans stroking him. The others had gone to bed and they had placed a silencing and repelling spell on the circular room, when one thing led to another. Draco shifted to lick Harry's nipple as Harry started to unbutton Draco's pants. He somehow managed to strip Draco of his pants and boxers, while Draco shifted himself to allow Harry to pull his garments down further. A look at each other's eyes and Draco used his wandless magic to prepare himself for Harry's entrance. As Harry joined himself to Draco, all the two boys could feel was the feeling of their chest brushing against each other and the love and contentment of the feeling of being 'together'. As Draco rocked both of them gently towards a climax, he could not believe that in the months since he had nothing, he seemed to have gained everything, and that he would never be alone again. When both cuddled for a moment after their climax, tears spilled from Draco's eyes.

"Dray… I didn't hurt you, did I?" Harry asked hesitantly. Draco shook his head as tears continued to leak from his mercury eyes. Harry concentrated on the emotions that Draco was radiating, getting contentment, love, happiness and a whole load of positive feelings. "You are happy?" Draco nodded. "Because you are here?" A nod. "With me?" Another nod. Harry smiled. "I'll always be with you. I'm never leaving you alone. It's hard to believe, because I'm feeling the same here and … I love you, Draco." Draco smiled and gave Harry a small kiss on his lips, while sending another wave of love through their link.

***

A feeling of uneasiness woke Harry up. He sat up in bed as Draco's eyes flew open, and he too sat up. Something woke them up. It was three seconds before realization came to their eyes to the fact that they had just received a warning from the guardians of the castle. Both scrambled out of bed as they realized that their worst fears just came true.

Hogwarts was under attack.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to be taking the hiatus when left on a cliffhanger. This story was written many years ago, while waiting for Book 5 to be published. It got stuck in my mind, back when I was posting it on FF.net and when Reality got too busy for me, I put it aside. Then after reading the published books and watching the movies, somehow I got rather upset by the events in the story. The following chapters after this were supposed to be on the escape from Hogwarts and also how Harry and Draco will finally get rid of Voldie, but that was where everything got stuck. The world out there changed and then I actually had quite a lot of changed views about the whole fandom over the many years. 
> 
> One day, I might just come back to it. Thanks for reading, for those who made it to this point.


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